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. “It's really hard, sort of, in a way, because I feel like I'm two different people. I was one person up until the pandemic as a professional chess player solely where I earned all my income. Everything was derived from that. And from the pandemic on, I'm sort of a different person because that is not where I'm making my income from. And so the whole psychological profile that I had before is completely different from now. There's this joke about that I literally don't care phrase that I've used. In a sense, what that means is not that I don't care. Obviously, I'm competitive. I want to do well. But if I lose a game or I don't do well in a tournament, it's not the end of the world in the same kind of way that I felt it was before because that pressure of needing to always perform was very, very high. And so I think before the pandemic, what I would try to do more than anything is just not think about the previous game for the most part. Like say I had a bad game. I'd go out for a walk that evening.”

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

2. “It's very weird because when you think about chess, it's a mental game. But we all are capable of beating Magnus, all of us. But we all have very, very bad scores against him. And I think people underestimate how much of a role that plays. And for me, when I played him in these online events in 2020 specifically, I felt like there was really nothing to lose, which also ties into everything else that happened during the pandemic as well. But I just felt like there was nothing to lose. And I felt like I was playing very freely, unlike before. Now, that's not to say that Magnus isn't a better player, that somehow I expect to beat him, but I felt like I wasn't making the same mistakes that I was making in the previous years.”

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

3. “I mean, the answer, I think, is actually quite simple. I think it's all psychological, actually, more than anything else. Because I didn't feel like I was doing anything differently, but I was also not making the mistakes that I was making before. So I think it was more psychological than anything.”

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

4. “Even if you don't convert, you feel like you have the chances When you play three or four games and you might lose one, draw three, you never have those opportunities, and so you feel very negative about what's going on.”

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

5. “Don't know if I'll necessarily do better against Magnus going forward, but I felt that when I started playing against him more than just a game here or there in Classical Chess, during the pandemic, I played him in these online tournaments. It seemed like every month. I came very close. I beat him in one event. I think I lost in two others, and then the two are final. But when I was playing against him more and more, he didn't feel superhuman. It felt like as I'm playing more and more and learning about his style that I was doing better. So I think for me, The weird thing is that I just wasn't playing against them that many games. But when I start playing against like 20, 30 games during the course of a year, I actually started feeling more confident because I feel like I can compete. Whereas when I was only playing him like three or four times in classical chess in the previous couple of years, I wasn't doing great. And then you don't have those glimpses of, you don't have those moments where you feel like you're going to be able to win against him. But when you start playing 20, 30 games and you get these opportunities.”

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

6. “Magnus because I viewed him completely differently too. After all those games where he was saving these endgames, I started thinking like this guy is superhuman. But you can't really have those thoughts when you're playing competitively. But in the back of your mind, it's always there. And I think every toppler has that issue.”

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

7. “Well, it's not just a problem. To me, this is the problem everybody has when they play against Magnus because. What happens is on a broader level, when you're playing on somebody, no matter who you're playing against, but when they're somehow able to save positions where they're much worse, almost in miraculous ways, the way that Magnus has done against everybody. He's done it against me, done against Erone many times, done it against Kranik, just about everybody. When someone's able to save games, it really starts to affect you because you don't know what to do. And the more and more times that happens, it starts adding up and it just affects you in a way that it's very, very hard to overcome. And I think every top player has that issue where if they've played against Magnus more than like five times, they've seen things happen in the game that don't happen against anybody else. And then psychologically, it becomes harder and harder to overcome it, which is why I think a lot of the junior players, they don't have this long history and it does affect them. As far as myself directly, certainly after that match, though, it was not the same playing against.”

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

8. “Right. And I can actually give you another example. So psychology plays a big role. And in the candidates' tournament, which I played in June of this past year in Madrid, Spain, I actually had the white pieces against Ali Reza Ferrugia, who is a rising junior originally from Iran, representing France. And I knew that he wanted very aggressive games. He doesn't normally play the Silly Nydorf, and he chose to play it in this one tournament. So I knew that he wanted these very sharp positions where he can lose, but he can also win. And so when I played him, I intentionally played this variation because I knew that he was going to be unhappy. He wanted these sharp, exciting games. And here I am playing something very boring where if he plays it correctly, it's going to be a draw, but he's not going to be happy. And so he actually did something dubious because he wanted to create tension. He wanted to create chaos.”

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

9. “Yeah, well, I'll make it even simpler here. If you put the knight here, it's very positional. If you put the knight on this square, it's very aggressive. Because normally white is going to push this pawn from F2 to either F3 or F4 and potentially a pawn to G4 later. So even here, based on where you go, it changes whether it's a positional game or it's a very tactical game.”

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

10. “Where both sides have chances? Is it something very positional? Where if you're black, you're probably okay, but you have to play the best moves in order to equalize, or you can end up worse”

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

11. “You can also push the pond to E5 or push the pond to e6. So there are many different setups, and it's very, very flexible. But White is the one who has the choice here in terms of what to play. And there are many moves. There's this move that I mentioned before, bishop to G5, which Magnus played against me. There's also bishop to e3, bishop to c4. And now there also moves like h3, h4, rook g1, even moves like a3 and a4. So there basically are nine or ten moves that white can play here. But the move that white plays sort of dictates the direction of the game. And you have to be extremely precise if you're black. So if white plays something like Bishop G5, this is very sharp and aggressive, but you can also play something like Bishop to E3, pawn to e5, and something like knight to f3 here. And it goes in a positional direction. So again, this is very advanced. These are very advanced sort of setups. And what I'm explaining is not at a basic level. But why is the one who chooses a typing game? Is it very aggressive, very short?”

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

12. “So black has many options. Black can play for B5 here to develop the bishop to B7. Because the pawn on A6 guards the pawn on B5. You can also play other setups like potentially G6 and putting the Bishm on G7.”

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

13. “Sure. So it's, for example, that would be E4 Now we get knight to f3, pawn to d6. For and now pawned eight six. So, this is an iIDRF. Bobby Fisher really popularized it in his run up to becoming the world champion. Gary played it for probably the last 15 to 20 years of his career. So it's a very solid opening defense”

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

14. “In that podcast, I talked about Sicilian Hidorf, very aggressive opening. The problem is white is the one who has the choices after the first five to six moves. White has the choices. What do you want to do?”

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

15. “You should be putting pressure. That doesn't mean you're going to win. There are going to be a lot of draws because the game of chess has draws tendencies, but you want to try. Normally, the general approach these days because of computers is you try to put pressure on your opponent when you're white and when you're black, you try to be solid, make a draw. That's the general approach. Now, when Gary was actually at his peak, it was quite the opposite. Gary was trying to win games with the black pieces as well by playing openings like the Sicilian Nidorf. But with modern technology, and I did a podcast recently where I also spoke about this, computers are so good and players can memorize so many lines that nowadays trying to take risks with black pieces, it almost always backfires. Or if you're very lucky, you might make the draw, but you never get the winning chances. So from a risk-reward standpoint, you have to play almost perfectly just to make the draw. But you're never going to have any winning chances. Where in the old days, generally, you might lose the games, but you're going to have chances to win as well. But now it's very much...”

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

16. “Would say that white's very slightly better. Black has moved the king, you're unable to castle the king, and it's kind of open in the center 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

17. “Think that's an old school way of thinking in chess because before computers, basically it was up to humans. Your intuition, your calculation process really determined whether a position is better. And so in Gary's time, if openings were dubious, they're dubious. It means somebody is better. But as we've learned with computers now, even small advantages, generally that doesn't mean anything and a position is defendable where you won't lose the game if you play optimal moves. Even if the advantage is like half a pawn, for example, like 0.50 with optimal play, a computer will still prove that that position you can hold it and not lose the game. And so for Gary, he learned it where like if an opening's not right, he knows it's not correct. He has to prove it. Now, finally, towards the end of the match, he tried to switch, but it was already way too late and he didn't have time to win with the white pieces. He did come close to one of the later games, but he spent the whole match trying to prove that this Berlin defense.”

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

18. “Right. On the other hand, for Kramnik, it was quite brilliant because Gary, what he was known for was opening preparation and getting the advantage. He was a very tactical, very aggressive player. And you're playing an endgame right from the start. Now, Gary basically thought that this was better for White, and he tried to prove it. And he was unable to prove it. I think up until maybe it was game nine or game 11, actually maybe the order wrong because I think he was white in the even number games. But basically he spent four or five games with a white pieces trying to win this endgame. And he was not able to win. In fact, he didn't even come close to proving an advantage, so he kept wasting the white pieces in that match. And Kramnik basically took advantage when he had the white pieces and Gary the black pieces. He was able to win some games in very nice style. And that was the difference.”

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

19. “Knight to D So this attacks the bishop on B5. White takes, black takes back with the pawn in front of the queen. And then it goes queen takes queen. King takes Queen”

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

20. “Exactly. These moves are, I think they're almost, at least for black, they're absolutely forced or else you end up in trouble.”

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

21. “Yeah, this is the Berlin. This is the starting position of the Berlin defense. And White has many, many options here. Now, it's interesting because I did work with Gary at a certain point, and I remember I had access to his database, and he had something like 220 files on the Berlin defense. Because what happened is as Gary's somebody who the way that he learned chess, it's very much like there are certain openings that are okay. There are other openings that are not okay. And so this was considered dubious at the time. And so Gary basically decided to go into this endgame with Castles, Knight Takes Pawn.”

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

22. “Absolutely. So the opening starts. Let me just move this microphone up a little bit. It starts with E4. And then it goes E Knight of three, knight c Yeah, there should be five. And now knight to F6.”

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

23. “Roy Lopez or the Spanish opening. It actually existed all the way back in the 60s, but it really became popular in 2001, I believe it was, when Gary Kasparov and Vladimir Kramnik played their World Championship match. Kasparov had been the world champion for a very long time. I think it was close, I think it was about 15 years roughly, maybe a little bit more than that. And he lost the match because when Gary had the white pieces, Kasparov was not able to effectively get an advantage. A lot of those games were very quick draws, and in chess you want to put pressure on your opponent when you have the white pieces. So Kaspara was not able to do anything with the white pieces and Kramnik was able to beat him when the colors were reversed. Kramnik won a game the Gruenfeld. He won a game in one of the Queen's gambit, declined slash Nimzo variations as well. And that was the reason Gary Sparov lost the World Championship title was because of this variation.”

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

24. “There are a couple of Berlin games in the sixth match, I believe, in the seventh match as well, where Magnus actually made some mistakes and I won some critical games.”

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

25. “I mean, the whole, it was actually sort of to set it up, and this probably will come into play in terms of world championship format, it was seven matches of four games. So he played a four-game match. And after four games, Sam up two and a half, one and a half. I win match number one. So it's like you have to win four matches of four games.”

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

26. “And I mean, that's why the score, I mean, it's not the only reason, but it's one of the reasons the score is so lopsided the way 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. “Know, I think it comes back to my general philosophy. I feel like everything happens for a reason. And so because I have that, that's one of my core beliefs. Like, I don't really look back on it as mistakes. I feel like everything has happened and things have transpired the way they have for a reason. If I look at it in terms of potentially like world championship aspirations, I think certainly it was a big mistake. Because from a competitive standpoint, Magnus figured out what my weaknesses were at the time and he exploited it for many, many years. In fact, I think if you look at the match I played against him in the meltwater tournament at the, I think that was in June or no, it was later. It was like September of 2020. We played this epic match. It was the finals of the tour and it went all the way to the seventh match, Magnus won in Armageddon. And in that match, my openings were much better. I was able to match him in the openings. I was not worse out of the opening in most of the games. And that made a huge difference. But for many years, he was able to exploit my opening.”

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

28. “Many of my favorite memories are actually similar to this. Another memory that I really have that I recall very fondly was after the US Championship. It was called the 2005 U.S. Chess Championship was held at the end of 2004 in, I believe it was in La Jolla in San Diego. I won that event. And after that event, I was playing Blitz probably for like four or five hours in the lobby of the hotel. So it's the same kind of situation where you're just playing for the love of the game as opposed to anything else. Of course, nowadays, I think both for Magus and myself, just playing a dimly lit room like this would almost certainly not happen. There would probably have to be certain stakes involved for us to play. But, you know, if you go back in time, these are the sorts of memories and moments that would happen 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

29. “This is probably at like one in the morning. This was, I believe, the day after the day that the final round occurred and the closing ceremonies were playing afterwards.”

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

30. “I think there was one journalist, Macaulay Peterson, who was able to film parts of it. So it was in a room. It was me, Magnus. I think Henrik was there. I think Macaulay was there and that was it.”

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

31. “Because Magnus going forward was able to figure out the lines where you have to be super precise. You cannot deviate at all. And I got punished out of the opening in many games. So it was like, it wasn't about the Nidorf, the opening or the variation specifically, but he knew what my repertoire was and we would pick lines where I had to play the absolute best lines in order to equalize or I would be much worse and he was very effective at doing that.”

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

32. “Sicilian's the opening Nidorf's variation that was played by Bobby Fisher, the former world champion, Gary Kasparov as well. And so we played all sorts of different openings because, of course, it's not a serious match, but it's not serious where it's going to count for the rankings. So you're trying to fill out where your opponent is strong versus weak. And so there was one game, I remember this very clearly. He played the Bishop G5 variation in the Nidorf, and I think I played E5 or I played Knight Bd7 in E5, which is dubious. It's not the best response. And that's just one example where I was playing things that are a little bit dubious and I was not playing the absolute main line with 20 moves of theory. So I was trying to get outside of theory. And I think Magnus learned from that that even though it appeared that I was very well prepared in these openings, I wasn't quite at that level.”

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

33. “I actually don't remember the game itself, but there was a game we played in Sicilian Idorf, and he played this variation with Bishop G5 on move number six. I'm sure you can insert a graphic later, I can show you.”

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

34. “So it's like, let's just say they're four pawns right here. They're just four ponds, and black is three ponds. So your ponds are on H6, G6, and F6. And there are no other ponds on the board. Something like this. And you both have rooks. And it's a draw, no matter what the next 50 moves of the game are, we know that it's a draw and end game with perfect play. And so it was things like this where Magnus actually saved, I want to say like five or six of these. And I remember it quite well because I think the score was very, very close up until probably the last like 10 games of the match. And then at the end, he started winning in spades. But there were a lot of situations where he was up like one game or maybe two games in the match. And I had some endgame like this. And I was not able to win the endgame. And so for me, after that match, it wasn't even so much that I lost the match or the margin I lost by, but it was the fact that I realized how hard it was to beat him even once you got the advantage. And I think for Magnus, he learned that my weakness was openings. I remember because”

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

35. “Okay, like a very basic one would be rook and four pawns against rook and three pawns. So that would be nine total pieces on the board, four pawns on one side, three pawns on the other side. But it's all on the same side of the board. Now this is a technical draw. It's been known for probably, let's just say, 70 years roughly, give or take, that this is a theoretical draw.”

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

36. “Endgames, but where I would have like an extra pawn, it would be like rook and bishop versus rook and knight. Say I have four pawns, he has three pawns, endgames of this nature. Now, if you aren't super into chess, you might not understand what I'm referring to. If you are, you will. But there are end games where one side might have extra material. An extra pond, say extra two ponds, but theoretically it's a draw. Can you give an example?”

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

37. “The reason that I probably should not have agreed to play this match and why very oftentimes reference it as one of the biggest mistakes in terms of competitive chess that I made is specifically because it gave Magnus a chance to understand my style of chess. And at the time, I actually had pretty good results against Magnus. I think maybe he was up one or two games, but there were many games where I had been pressing close to winning against him prior to that match. And so when I went and played that match, there were a few things that happened. First of all, Magnus really started to understand my style because we played all sorts of different openings. And so I think he understood that at times I wasn't so great in the opening and there were many openings where I would play slightly dubious variations as opposed to the main lines. And then secondly, from my standpoint, the problem that I realized is since we were playing with an increment, there were many games where I was close to winning and he would defend endgames amazingly well. He would defend what are technically drawn.”

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

38. “Yeah, so this is kind of a crazy story. This was not pre planned at all. I remember this quite well. I went out to dinner that final night with someone who was actually very high up within the Internet Chess Club at that time. I went out for a nice dinner. I think I had like a couple of drinks. Maybe it was wine, beer. I don't know what it was. And I think towards the end of the dinner, somehow they got word of this and they relayed the information to me that Magus wanted to play a private match. Now, I agreed to play this match. Probably I should not have. And actually, it has nothing to do with like the...”

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

39. “Where'd you find out the score? I'm actually curious. I don't think it was publicly said or it was very briefly said, but it wasn't ever mentioned in a serious way.”

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