GothamChess on Aliens, Serial Killers & Playing a Ghost

Chess may look like a pretty straightforward game. 64 squares, 32 pieces, and two people trying to outthink each other. But, underneath the board, things get pretty weird. Because the history of Chess is filled with geniuses, and con men, and dictators, and occultists, and some of the craziest stories I've ever heard. Napoleon once played a chess-playing machine that secretly had a man hiding inside of it. Aleister Crowley was obsessed with becoming a great chess player before turning to the occult. A Cold War championship involved accusations of hypnosis, coded messages hidden in yogurt, and spiritual gurus brought in to block psychic attacks. And one legendary grandmaster allegedly spent eight years playing a chess match against a man who had been dead for decades. Oh, and according to the former president of the International Chess Federation, Chess came from aliens. Yeah, today I have Gotham Chess himself, also known as Levy Rosman, and he joins me as we descend into the bizarre mysterious and sometimes completely unhinged history of Chess. This episode is absolutely fascinating. Some of the lore here is pretty dark, and I even have Levy analyze some of the most infamous games in all of Chess history. I think you're going to really enjoy it. So sit back, relax, and welcome to camp. Levy Rosman, how are you? I'm good. I'm so excited that you're here. If anyone doesn't know, which I'm sure many people watching this do know, you are Gotham Chess. You are only the reason I'm obsessed with chess. I didn't know that, but you are truly the reason. I think I mentioned this to you maybe even when you came on Flagrant. I got into it because I've always loved chess. I always thought it was a cool game, but I never I just never like committed myself to learning when I was a kid. And then my buddy Miles bought me like a Bobby Fisher chess set, kind of learned like the general rules of the game. Then my pal David who's sitting right here got super obsessed with chess, probably like what four or five years ago, and then got me onto it. And he was like, dude, I just need you to go to YouTube type in Gotham chess and watch everything. Everything. It's a lot. It's no small task. One a day for counting shorts, like two or three a day. And I'm making my way. I'm probably five percent of the way in. And I have not improved really that much. But that's on me. You're not you're not bad. Okay. All right. We were sholts and I were using additional help and we still couldn't be too blindfolded. So not a great start. But that was his fault. Yeah, it was his fault. He blundered a rook for no reason. I don't really even understand what happened. But I am so excited to have you here because I don't know if you know about the campsite. This is where we deep dive on the craziest, most controversial and fascinating mysteries of all time. Okay. That is what the show is. I'm so passionate and fascinated by the realm of the unknown. And so I love to deep dive into mysteries and all sorts of stuff. Conspiracy is esoteric. What's going on in the world? And I've found an intersection with chess. There are so many crazy stories and lore built into the chess world. And I have a list of them from games using like clairvoyance to talk to dead grandmasters, to serial killers, to I mean like crazy prisoners that are, you know, ranked super highly. There's so many things in the chess world and there's so many essential characters. I'm going to break down the most fascinating ones. Okay. I actually found an iceberg, a chess iceberg. I don't know if you are familiar with an iceberg as far as like a meme lore. Yeah. Like there's like the tip and then there's a could you pull up the chess iceberg that I sent you. This is a chess iceberg that I found on Reddit. And it came from a specific person infinite trouble 1899. This was posted three years ago. And it said it took him or her five to 10 hours to make. I lost count and basically tried to compile all the most fascinating chess lore into one image. And I kind of use this as a basis to to break down some of these stories. And so you start at the top and you're like, Oh, got them chest is up there. You got chest calm. You got imposant. And then as you go down, it gets to become more niche and more strange and more bizarre. So then you get to the blindfold game. Keep going down a little bit. Up top is like very standard. Then you get to the bottom. You get Kasperov versus deep blue and, you know, morphy number and, you know, all sorts of crazy stuff, clawed blood good and all sorts of wild things. So I picked the my favorite ones from this hierarchy. Okay. Go through with you today. Okay. The one that I want to start with that I think is fascinating is the morphy number. Have you heard of this? I don't think so. What is I'm so glad. Well, you know Paul Morphe. Yes. One of the greatest chess players of all time. Yes. I don't really know a ton about his games or why he was so prolific. But I just know he was kind of like this icon of the chess world. Yeah, American icon opera game. That's like the one that everybody remembers. And that's the one that sports teams try to recreate when they run ads. Oh, really? Yeah. This is a recent phenomenon on the last one or two years is somebody in the in the marketing is like, let's do chess. And then they like have the athlete or whatever play the game. And I've been reacting to these and so many of them have mistakes. It's unbelievable. Really? Yeah. But they use the opera game. Yeah. And I think Paul Morphe was the guy that said, like a sign that you're a good chess player is the sign of a gentleman and the sign of a really good chess player is the sign of a wasted life. Yes. Yeah. And that true. It's very kind of tracks, right? Because there are a lot of these like grandmasters that like kind of like pass away like destitute like in a basement somewhere like drinking just like obsessed with why I didn't become one. That's the same. Also, that's why I didn't become a grandmaster either. But I mean, I like my life too much. But there's a thing called the Morphe number. It's basically the chain of games to get back to Paul Morphe. Oh, yes. Okay. So this is basically like degrees to like Kevin Bacon. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. And I found your Morphe number. It's probably like it's probably like three, five, five. But maybe it's less. You tell me this is the chain that I found. And it seems like a lot of the big chess players they have about five. I'm kind of insulted. They'll keep us so low. But maybe that was so long ago. I don't even know if I know that one. That's me in Indonesia. Oh, that's right. That's not super natural or conspiratorial. It doesn't really fit the spot, but still. No, but it is a bit of a mystery. But we'll get to that one a second. So Morphe plays a guy named James Mortimer. Mortimer plays someone named Seveli Tarketower. That's Tartekower. Tartekower. Tartekower plays Smithlove. Yeah. Smithlove then plays Pia Kramling. Aha. Yeah. And then I play Pia. And then you play Pia. Five. That is the that is the distance between you and Paul Morphe. Do you have it open in front of you? Which one the list? Yeah. The Morphe like calculator. No, I mean, I don't even know if there is a calculator. This is just me going through like Reddit slash like AI is trying to figure it out. Oh, why? Who do you want to know about? Well, I played, I've played somebody named, maybe we can ask, uh, an AI, I played, um, our third Bizgeyer, spelled B-I-S-G-U-I-E-R, like very legendary old American Grandmaster, which I think could shorten my Morphe number. When did you play him? When I was a kid. Oh, really? So it wasn't in the like databases. Oh, so it might even be less. I think it might be like four or with him if he played somebody old enough, he could have maybe played, right? No, probably not directly with Morphe. So it has to be, we probably have to go through Mortimer. Yeah. Did you win? I don't remember. Probably not, but he was already older. So like beating him when he was 80 is, you know, you can't like, if Magnus for some reason is playing tournaments when he's 80 in 50 years, no one's going to be like, I beat Magnus. Like, you can't even see the board anymore. It's crazy to me that there's such a drop off when it comes to professional chess. That's almost like sports. It's like, yeah, it's almost exactly like it. Like when you get into like your 30s, late 30s, it's like, ah, yeah, you're past your time. You know, you're like, you get washed up almost like how you would in like the NBA. Yeah, I think in chess specifically, it must be also motivation related, like the money's not as good as it is in some professional sports. So I guess you just had a, when you have a kid, probably sleep way worse than you have. And I agree. As a, you know, bachelor, 30 year old superstar, got to blame the kids. I fully am an alignment. I would be a grand master. It wasn't for this freaking minimum 700. We're fighting for every little point here. For anyone who doesn't know, Elon's basically like a ranking system. Yes. If anyone is not familiar with the chess world and 500 is where I'm at. Yeah, quite bad. He is a crazy candidate, like, to transition to the kind of old school of chess because she played so many legends. Mm-hmm. Smith Lawvin. I just put this in by the way. Arthur Biscower. Biscower, yeah. Biscower puts you at four. It must, right? Yeah, because he's older. He's American. So he probably more fee-played Mortimer and then Tartekower and then Biscower. Play Tartekower. Yeah, I think so. That's sick. And then, yeah, back to you. Probably lost to him. Yeah, it's got to be four. That would make sense. Hey, real quick, most people who watch this channel aren't subscribed. And when you subscribe, you help the channel grow and you stay in the loop with every new drop, religion camp, history camp and camp gagnon. Well, let's get back to it. Now, I want to ask you about some current chess drama that happened with Elon. Yeah, it's not really drama, but yeah, what is that all about? Elon's going back and forth with like the chess.com social media team. Yeah, basically saying the chess is whack. Essentially, right? He's like, it's a solved game. This is boring. I mean, we can pull up the official like actual tweets, but yeah, like, what was your take on what he was saying? Well, what I learned from being on flagron and it's to a lesser degree than Elon himself. Like, some people just bring out very strong emotions in people due to either their or overall financial status or things they say or do, which the bigger profile you get, the more things you say and do. And like, yeah, people jammed on this. This was the big one where he said like the actual number of moves that are not hardly stupid and just as tiny. The truth is like that statement may or may not be true, but all of this stuff when you speak really, really just, like categorically about chess, you know, you just like say it statement and like that's why the game is not interesting. I don't think that applies. I mean, I suppose when like arguably a top, like how famous is Elon Musk? Is he like top three, top five most famous people on the planet? God of you, right? Like, you know, he says something like that. It's gonna generate some discussion. I just look at the fact that chess is AI proof. So it's been AI proof for 30 years. Nobody cares that the computer's better. Right, we all like to play it. It's one of the only things where watching terrible chess it does better on social media than watching good chess 'cause it's really relatable. Yeah. Yeah, this was a beef. I mean, you, I don't know if we were gonna scroll through the whole thing, but you know, it was chess. I don't know if we even need to, but I think it's an interesting point that yeah, chess, the computers are better, AI's are better. But we love it because it's human. Yeah, so we like the irrationality. And his whole point was he compared it to polytopia. I don't know what that is, but he was like, there's no respawn, there's no this, there's no that. The running theory that I was seeing from the biggest haters of Elon Musk is like, he's probably just unsatisfied with his rating. Yeah. I mean, I don't know if that's true. I don't know how much chess he's playing on chess.com, or if he's playing at all. Yeah, maybe he just genuinely doesn't think it's that interesting of a game. Maybe, but sounds like my boy lost one game. Sounds like a couple. Yeah, maybe a couple, like it is an interesting thing that you can have someone that is so professionally successful has so much money. It's very intelligent. Like, I don't think any of them disputes that Elon is like very, very smart and very brilliant. But if you lose to like an eight year old kid, you're like, this game's stupid. Yeah, there's no world in which somebody like Musk or frankly like anybody who is, you know, I don't know if he has PhDs. I'm just gonna say just somebody who has a PhD and whatever is working in space or working in tech, like to such a level is a multiple time CEO is gonna feel good about themselves if they're 900 on chaz.com. Yeah. Like, there's something just fundamentally different about when you play chess. It makes you feel really, really stupid when you lose. Yes. And so I don't know if this is cope or he just genuinely believes it. But yeah, this is our latest thing. And I mean, Jesus, this generated like 50 to, I don't know, 60 million impressions just on my social media. Yeah. Like the short one viral, everyone's debating in it. And then like I said, he causes a strong reaction in people and we're just good, you know, crazy, right? We just need really top three, top five. And the next thing Obama's got a tweet about chess, you know? Yes. Got to be like, actually, this game is fascinating. It's a great game. I mean, it's broad just by aliens, according to some people. Yes. We'll get to that in a second. But he's not the first person that's of a high esteem to play chess. And there's actually famous games between Napoleon Bonaparte and what they call the mechanical Turk. Yeah, well, can you tell me about the mechanical Turk? The first instance of cheating in chess is the mechanical Turk. What do you mean cheating? They built a contraption that made people think it was a machine that was playing moves. And inside of it, allegedly, was just a chess player sitting in a thing underneath. Yeah. I don't know how the hell they did like ventilation and stuff. I can't imagine. The build of it is fascinating. Have you seen like the inside of like the recreations? Yeah, it's crazy. I don't know how they didn't suffocate. That they transported it on boats, right? Or trains or whatever they had back in the day. I don't know when the first train was built. But winning by suffocation would be-- I would feel really-- I would feel guilty about that. You know, I mean, playing the Turk and all of a sudden, like eight minutes goes by and not one move. And you're like, wait a second, this is-- Right, like, how did they have a board down there? I mean, I guess it was just someone looking like this and you can see the pegs. But yeah, supposedly it was just the person. The way I understand the mechanics is like there was an arm that came out and like he was able to control like a lever that literally controlled the arm of this robot. And then above him was the board. And then you could see the magnets. As you put down like a magnetic piece, like a magnet would basically pull up. And then you could see where the pieces were being moved. And then you could move the pieces of the board. And infamously, Napoleon Bonaparte played against it. One of the games, but this is probably apocryphal because it's hard to really know like what's real. One of the games that I heard Napoleon starts playing and he starts doing illegal moves. This is literally Napoleon Bonaparte. Like one of the most ferocious generals of all of like the history arguably. And starts playing illegal moves. And the mechanical Turk, aka the chess master underneath, starts like moving the pieces back. Like, hey, you can't do that. And then Napoleon does another move and that's illegal. And he goes, you can't do that. He does another move that's illegal. The Turk just takes the piece off the board and then Napoleon tries another one. And allegedly, according to the story, the mechanical Turk and the operator underneath swipes all the pieces off the board and says, "F this, I'm done." - Wow. - And basically, and Napoleon apparently was so amused by this that he played a more legit game. And that's the game that we have notation for. - Oh, so the result of that wasn't Napoleon getting mad. It was, he was trolling. - The exact opposite. - He was trolling, 'cause he was like, okay, so this is like a robot using like a spirit or something or a computer that's able to like beat people all the time. So he's like, let's test it. And he starts like, basically messing with it. And then it makes it frustrated enough that he's like, oh, this is fun. - Wow, that's sick. He didn't like freak out or anything. - No. - Yeah. - Did he issue a royal decree in France that chess has no spawn point? - No. - I don't think even that came up. I think he was like, oh, it was pretty lit. - Yeah. - As a matter of fact, these games were, a lot of them were being played in Paris. - Yeah. - 'Cause it was owned at one point. I think it was built by like a German guy and then ends up getting bought by a French guy. And then he adds a recorder into it. And the recorder says it check. Or like, wow, like it literally says check in French. I guess this specific game was played in Vienna. I gotta visit this palace. - Yeah. - Skundbr. I don't know. Skundbrun Palace. I don't know why I said Scottish, but. - Yeah, might be shit. I'm going to the Skundbrun Palace. - The Skundbrun. - But also apparently the last game that played in Paris was against Ben Franklin. - Wow. - French American diplomat. Or like the American diplomat to France. - What's his morphine number? - He's probably close. - Yeah, he's probably straight up one. If you go by the mechanical Turk, I wonder if it's right there, right? But it's a wild game. Can we click through this just to get your take on the game a little bit? - I probably covered it. I can't remember. I might have. - Yeah. - Okay. - Isn't Napoleon white? Who's playing white? If we just scroll up real quick? - Yeah, can you scroll up on Napoleon's white? So he tried to, he tried to scholars made it. That's pretty cool. - Yeah. - It didn't fall for it. - Wow. - Okay. - Is this really Napoleon or is this like an advisor? Like I, the story, the legend is that it's Napoleon. The legend. Again, a lot of this stuff is difficult to assess. So my understanding is like when they were playing the game, they were actually separated 'cause they were afraid of having Napoleon like too close to this machine. - Ah. - So like they were kind of separated and someone was going back and forth and moving the pieces. That's sick. Okay, night, jump in, yep. Move the queen. Brothers and knights, queen jump. Woof. What are you seeing? - No, you can't take the night. - Okay, so keep clicking through 'em. - Oh, oh. - Yeah, you can't take the night 'cause there's, okay, queen's hanging. He took the queen with the check. On the side, yep. Take the pawn. Take the pawn with the queen. The queen of three. - The pawn is in trouble. - Yeah, he's cooked. Mate, almost, mm-hmm, mm-hmm. That's fancy. Mate. - Wow. - So Napoleon got cooked by a Turkish robot. - I think it was just called a Turkish, I don't think that. (laughing) Also, wasn't it like the Ottoman Empire then? I don't, my history timelines a little messed up. I really do wonder who was inside that thing 'cause it played ruthless. I mean, it played easily above master level nowadays. - There's a lot of theories about who was in it. So, it changed a lot, obviously, depending on location. But they say when it came to America, I can actually find the actual person that they think that it was. Let me find it here. They say that the different chess masters who were thought to have operated it were Yohan Al-Gair. - Okay. - Bon Quartz, Aaron Alexander, William Lewis, Jacques Morey, and then, infamously William Schlumberger. - Have you heard of these people? - Fuck no. (laughing) - No, apparently one of them beat Napoleon, which is pretty impressive. - That's sick. - What ends up happening to this is it gets passed around trade shows and then ends up going to a museum in America. There's a fire that breaks out. - No. - The fire burns it down. The child of the guy who basically inherited it, that put it on loan in this museum, runs to the museum to try to go retrieve it. And according to him, and this is just legend, he stands outside the museum, hearing the fire raging and rippling through this whole museum, and apparently the last words that he hears are at check. - At check. - And here's the robot allegedly saying check as it's burning in the flames and melting. - Wow. - As legend goes. - Crazy. - But apparently was also rebuilt, and then it was using like the original chess board. - I mean, yeah, I was gonna say, I feel like one of those channels now that the science builds, you know, I built this, I built that, should build the modern day. - Yeah. - How about that? That's a 20 million view video right there. - Easily. - But it also was expensive. I think they got to rebuild it back in like, like the 80s spent roughly like $300,000. Rebuilding it. - Come on, that's like-- - Get a couple sponsors, you can make it work. - Yeah. - Brought to you by, you know, whatever that is. And, you know, a couple more products? And yeah, easy. Have you heard of Alistair Crowley? - No, I, the only, I thought that was like a character in some like anime or Crowley. That just sounds like, well, he's been used infamously throughout like pop culture and like rock. So he's featured on the cover of Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band by The Beatles. - Okay. - Black Sabbath, Ozzy Osborne has a song about him. He's a famous occultist from the 1900s. - Uh-huh. - He was dubbed the most wicked man in the world. - Okay. - We've done a bunch of episodes on him, you guys should check him out. But he's just an infamous occultist that was basically like, using magic and like sex magic and founded his own like Abby, the Abby of Thelma, like in Italy somewhere. He was kicked out by Mussolini because someone ended up dying, I think, from drinking like cats blood during like a sacred magic ritual. - Oh, it just sounds like the stuff they do in the US. Wasn't there a cool, late thing and right? Like they're similar. - Yeah. - That one was a Jonestown. - Yeah, Jonestown. - That was like a cult. This guy is running like a magical Hogwarts where people are doing like rituals and stuff to like get knowledge from entities. So he's a practitioner of this. - Right, but like in theory, he's running, there's not, they're not actually doing it. It's just a bunch of people just hanging out. - Well, that's for the viewer inside. - That is, he talked to a demon of one point that like helped him write a book. - This has to be the name of a Hogwarts professor. - A Callister Crowley. - It's crazy. - I really like the name Allister actually. - It's like a, it sounds like a magical name. - It is a nice name, Allister is a nice name. - I like it. - At one point of my knowledge is correct here, he was contracted by Winston Churchill to be a spy for the British against the Nazis. - Yeah, okay. - That was like a practicing like magician. Like he was gonna do fucking card tricks to get in with the Nazis like I don't, and like believed that like he was in touch with like the entities of the universe and like was getting knowledge. But before any of that, - Yeah. - He was committed to becoming one of the greatest chess players of all time. - Yeah, that trucks. (laughing) - You've met a couple Crowley's in your life? - Yeah, yeah, we all got one inside. That's what we, all right. He was obsessed with chess. By 17, he was writing a chess column under a fake name and was like trying to run like chess clubs. In 1897, he was bored one captain of the Cambridge chess team against Oxford. He also became the club president. And by 1897, he walked into a massive tournament in Berlin and in his words, he had a mystical out-of-body experience. The grand master suddenly looked shabby and pathetic to him and his reaction was, quote, "There by for the grace of God "coz Aleister Crowley, he vowed to quit serious chess "on the spot." And then says, "I'm dedicating my life now to magic." But he didn't quit. Because his diary show him playing for decades. In 1931, he apparently is beating the master Jacques Mise in a casual game and he's still playing at the Hastings chess club in 1946, a year before he died. There's one surviving game that's a draw against English chess master Joseph Blackburn from 1894, where he apparently misses a win. Wait, 1894 is the one game? That's the one game that we have notation for when he was early on playing as a kid. But the rest of his game-- He claims that he played 40 years later. Yeah, I know. Well, he doesn't have the notation. He's just like, oh, I eat this guy, whoop this guy. He's just writing his journal like, dude, I'm the best. Meanwhile, talking to entities being like, dude, I'm connected with the occult universe. This is why I love chess, because there are these characters that exist in the world of chess that are drawn to the game. If we really simplify that story, he walked into a tournament of grandmasters and went, I could beat everybody and I'm just left. And it was like, I don't want to. I just don't want to do it. I don't want to. And on top of that, I'm going to beat everyone in the greater game of life, which is talking to entities and getting forbidden knowledge. It's like having a girlfriend at another state. Yeah, you don't know her. Yeah, we met on a cruise. No, but actually there's a lot of these legends in British chess. Yeah, but I never heard of this guy. So wild. Now, apparently he says that playing blindfold chess growing up actually helped him use astral projection and create astral temples for his magic rituals. So he starts getting involved with this thing called the Order of the Golden Dawn. This is like an occult order. And it had its own four player occult chess built from John D's Anokian magic. And apparently was using like chess plus like fortune telling and trying to like use entities to play chess. Crazy. I. What a man. (laughs) So what did he like, how did his life end? What, he died like kind of like a poor drunk in a basement. You know what I mean? Okay. No, but he's okay. He was not a happy ending for him. But he died in 1946. That's correct. And there was the stuff that you said that he might have been contracted to do the stuff with the Nazis. So like with the English against the Nazis. Yeah. And then he died within a few years. Yeah. He was like, it was a, it was a drunkard and was just kind of like all over the place. But yeah, there's, okay, this is, maybe this is a, this is an urban legend. Let me just clarify here. But World War I historian Richard B. Spence argues that he worked with British intelligence in America using his pro German propaganda activities as a cover. He says this is a historical argument not proof of his recruitment by Churchill. He offered his services to British naval intelligence but buyer full accounts report that the offer was declined. He also tried to claim credit for V for victory. That was associated with Churchill but again remains unproven. Carly may have worked with you. It was like crazy. Oh wow. But I just find it fascinating. Like one of the most famous occultists of all time was like, dude, chest is like my shit. Well, my okay, he had generation, heart muscle, chronic bronchitis. Yeah, that'll happen. Yeah. But despite all like the magic stuff, he kind of has a, you know, he has like sort of a chest kind of affect. I feel like if you just stuck with chest, like he would have probably died the same way. Just like in a basement obsessed, you know, I mean, drank and planned all day. I don't think he would have made it the 72. (laughing) He would be like 10, 10 years younger. Yeah, it's unclear, right? Like all this type of stuff, the folks that tried to, I mean, do magic. You kind of wonder, like they're living, they obviously have a calling of some sort, right? They're like living their life in a way where they're, this is like their higher calling. And they must be pretty charismatic if they build a following. Yeah. So I just, I mean, he felt like he was following his passion. I guess. Hey guys, we're gonna take a break really quick 'cause I wanna give a quick shout out to one of our sponsors. This episode is brought to you by Mod. Mod prescribes a once or twice daily, Medaphine ill drink that can keep you energized, focused and alert throughout the entire day. And here's how it works. Energy drinks with caffeine temporarily block adenosine. This is the chemical that makes you feel tired. And it builds up and when the caffeine wears off, you get that crash. But Medaphine ill works differently. It engages multiple pathways in your brain, including dopamine, norepinephrine, histamine, andorexin to achieve steady energy and alertness for 10 to 12 hours. Medaphine ill was invented in the 1970s. And since then, it's been used by some of the highest performers on and off the planet. Yeah. Soldiers, pilots, and even astronauts aboard the International Space Station have used Medaphine ill and high-stakes situations where concentration and alertness literally could cost you your life. And now it's available through mod.com to qualifying patients. Visit mod.com. That is mod.com for a free consultation and get 10% off your first order plus free shipping with the promo code Gagnon. That is the promo code [email protected]. See their website for important safety information and we thank mod for sponsoring the pod. Now let's get back to it. He's not the only person to play using, I guess, like mystical elements. There's a famous game that I told you about before. Courtsnoy versus a ghost. Yeah, that I never knew about. Never. I know so much about Courtsnoy, I never knew about that. I don't really know about Courtsnoy. What can you tell me about him generally? So there were a few players in history who were born in, I always mix this up. Like, I'm used to saying Soviet Union, Russia. I don't remember what it was in 1917. Like that was when Alekand was a. But I don't think he liked his name pronounced like a Russian. And Alekand is the American pronunciation. But he defected in 1917. Courtsnoy was kind of the second coming of that. He wanted to leave the Soviet Union. So he actually left Switzerland. But he was one of the best players from Soviet Union. And he played against Carp of multiple times. And Carp of was the golden child of Soviet chess in the 1970s. He was supposed to play Fisher. It was supposed to be Fisher who won it in '72 against Carp of the new Soviet star. But we know Fisher kind of fell off the map a little bit after that and quit chess and so on. He said he wouldn't play him and then Carp of won the title without playing. It was like vacant, it was like stripped from. Yeah. So really, Fisher's the lineal champ. Nobody ever actually took it off of him. Yeah. Their game, by the way, is fascinating. Yes, their whole match in 1978 is crazy. Like, maybe we talk about that for a second before I tell you about the playing the dead. Yeah, just so people know, like, coach noise, um. Very like fierce, you know, bad loser, like, you know, in the sense that he was a very fiery guy, right, yeah. And that picture of him with the mirrored glasses is like iconic. - Yeah. - Because of this game in '78. - Yeah. - So 1978 Cold War. - Yep. - Chess World Championship is basically a proxy war. USA versus USSR. - Yes. - Both sides are trying to put their best and brightest, specifically the Soviets to be like, hey, we are the best and brightest of the world. Look at what our government can produce. And so Carpav is the Soviet Union's Golden Boy. And he becomes the, you know, kind of the world best because of this vacancy with Bobby Fisher. - Yeah. And Coach Noy is older than him, I think. - Yeah, he's 47. Carpav was 27. - Yep. - And he's the world number two. Defected from the USSR and is now a traitor. So they go to play this game. - And correct me if there's anything in here that is wrong or if you need to add any details. But Carpav's team brought a Soviet, again, Carpav is the Soviet, he's the actual guy from the USSR. - Correct. - They bring a Soviet psychologist, Dr. Vladimir Zukar, who sat in the front row and stared at Coach Noy for hours during the whole game. Just like unbroken eye contact. Just like staring into his soul. So much so that Coach Noy believes that he was being hypnotized. - Correct. - He was like, this guy's doing like mind tricks on me to get inside my head. And so he shows up for like the next games with these glasses that are mirrored to basically block off like the hypnotic trance that this guy was trying to put him in. And it became like this iconic moment in chess where these two guys are going back and forth. Game two, Carpav gets served blueberry yogurt. - Correct. - Coach Noy is like, what's, why is he getting yogurt in the middle of the game? Because the idea is like maybe the yogurt or the flavor or the way that it's served to him or the time is a signal or a coded message to indicate what move he should play next. How would that work if you were to cheat using yogurt in a game? Like you and I are playing each other. We're in a position. It's my move. - Well, obviously I would have worked something out ahead of time, right? Like different flavors of yogurt. Anyway, blueberry yogurt sounds really good. And you know, I feel like back in the day they didn't have like GMO. So I wonder like was it just like a grounded of blueberry? - Natural. - It must have been really tasty. No, it's very easy. Like plain yogurt, you know, white is better. Blueberry yogurt, black has an advantage, whatever, right? Like nowadays you're not gonna see it. That was probably the one and only time in history. Anybody was served yogurt in a game. So, you know, you gotta wonder. - Well, apparently they made a fix 'cause he was like look, I need yogurt during the game. That's what I do. - Correct. - And so they were like, okay, fine. Only one type of yogurt at a specific time. - Correct. - Served by a specific waiter. - Yeah, there you go. - And they made a concession for him. There was a bunch of things. Like first of all, this match was held in Manila, I think in the Philippines. - In Bajua. - Yeah, in Baguio. - Baguio. - Baguio city. - In Baguio city. Yeah, that was pretty random. - There was all sorts of weird stuff. Later on, Cortanoid said, okay, it wasn't the timing of the yogurt. It might be that there's stimulants in the yogurt. Like there's like meth in there or like there's steroids or something that's like giving him a brain advantage in the middle of the game. - And yeah, and the thing is, Cortanoid didn't represent the USA, but he, you know, I think he didn't play without a flag, rather he played without a flag as representation. And he got pretty close. I think he got twice he played Carpoid. I think they also played in 1975. And maybe in 1981, like this was a long rivalry. - Yeah. - And Carpoid was always just a little bit better than him. They went back and forth. Carpoid was like, hey, we need to investigate his chair. - Yeah. - Apparently Cortanoid had a custom chair. - Yeah, he had a custom chair. - They do an X-ray on it. And there's nothing and it's just like foam and metal. And then at one point, there's a, also not to cut you off, there's a really famous clip on YouTube. I mean, we can pull it up. I don't know if we want to do that. - Yeah, yeah. - It's literally like what Cortanoid says about Carpoid, like his breakdown of Carpoid. And he's like, he's just like, you know, Carpoid is like a fish. He's not complicated. Like he doesn't really think too much. He doesn't concern himself with openings or like middle games. He's just like a good pupil. Like he's just like-- - Kind of like sunning him. - Yeah, he's like a little kid that's taught well. - Yeah. - Call him a fish is hilarious. - We had a, we had a Chess trash talk actually, like the past week it has nothing to do with anything. But yeah, it's funny. He's just like, yeah, like he's just like not creative at all. He just like learned the technique. And you know, he just plays it a certain way. And his games aren't flashy, but he just wins, yeah. - I love that. - Wait, what was the trash talk this weekend? Was it good? - It was pretty good. It was, so there's this kid, Dennis Lasovick, Belarussian kid who, you know, the last three, four years, he's just like grinding these online tournaments. He doesn't get a lot of invitations 'cause he's a Belarussian. And anytime he shows up, he wins. - Really, he's really good. - Yeah. And so this year he had a really big breakthrough. In February, he beat Hikaru for the third place match in the Speechless Championship. - Wow. - And then he just beat him in the Esports World Cup for the first and second place spot. Like he to earn a spot in the final. - Wow. - So he beat Hikaru twice. And he did some Russian, it wasn't even really a podcast. It was this fellow Belarussian kid who has a YouTube channel. And they went on and they just like talked for two hours. And the guy asked him like, "So how'd you feel when you beat Hikaru?" And Dennis was like, verbatim was just like, "Oh, I knew I would beat Hikaru." Like he doesn't know how to play chess at all. - He doesn't know how to play chess at all. And then you know, but again, it's like two friends like shooting the shit and then he was kind of like, no, I mean, you know, he was obviously like tongue in cheek, but he kind of was like, well, he has all these different flaws in his game that I was confident I would exploit. And then like, I just see that quote posted on like Reddit, right? And then I'm like, did you really say that? And I tune in and like in Russian. I'm like, oh, yeah, he said it. But you know, he doesn't really believe Hikaru doesn't know how to play chess. He's just kind of, but I was like, I can't believe this dude who's so soft-spoken, just kind of like said that in friendly conversation. Then he said some other stuff like, there's an American player who hasn't gotten sponsorship and you know, Dennis basically said like, oh, you're not impressive. Like, you know, you're this rating at this age, like you're not useful to anybody in the modern world. Like something like that and he said another thing and this pissed off, like this really brought him from like hilarious trash talking kids like over the edge. He was criticizing the fact that it wasn't really criticism but he was kind of saying like, he was in a training group and men and women were separated in the training group because, you know, the men were higher rated. And so the two of them were like, oh, thank God, like women don't understand anything. And I was like, no, dude, come on. Like, just keep it to the Hikaru thing. Like keep it to the other stuff, like you can. - Yeah, when the trash talk gets to like twos and you're like, oh, come on. - Yeah, and so, no, but he said all of that. And well, the lesson there for this young man was that, even though your live stream might not have that many viewers and it might be in your own language, anybody can go watch it afterward. - And they reach the people you're talking about. - Yeah, and people don't, they didn't take well to everything. And then he was asked about it. He kind of walked it back a little bit. But, yeah, it might have been Dennis' first time getting hit with the reality of the internet. - Yeah, it is, yeah, stuff finds people, dude. You can do a real, that's like, as a hundred views. And if you're talking about someone specifically, it doesn't really matter how famous they are. There's like a decently high chance that we'll find them. Like, have you ever found yourself just like scrolling on YouTube shorts or Instagram, you see something about you? And it has like 50 views and it just, this algorithm's like, hey, you're gonna want to see this. - Yeah. - It just gets to you. - Yeah. - Luckily, most of them are positive. But, you know, yeah, I'll just be scrolling and I'll see, I don't know, I think even this morning, oh, this morning it was a random TikTok of me. It was one of my earliest videos and I'm sitting there in a collared shirt. And I'm like, today we're gonna be talking about, it was like the one video I had in a collared shirt. But I look so young and innocent and somebody was like, is this the pilot episode? And the comments were so funny. Like, you know, now if I make a blunder, he fucking yells at me and calls me a moron. - So fun. - Yeah, so, yeah. - My favorite like, modern like, chest thing, it's not really like trash talk, but it's just like a funny little moment. The Ali Reza handshake. - This is so funny to me. - Yeah. - I saw a comment that said, they pre-moved each other's handshakes. - Yeah, COVID days. - It's so funny, we rolled it. - This one's legendary. - So in the bottom here, for anyone who's not watching, it's this first table right here. So he comes over, it's COVID, fist bump handshake, fist bump handshake, fist bump handshake, and, oh, handshake. (laughing) - The fact that two, three, four, five, six, like six switches, the fact that they're both high level chest players, I do believe they pre-moved. They pre-moved the handshake. - Yeah, they both were anticipating. - Yeah. - It was like a little anime fight. - Yeah. (laughing) - Fun fact, I think the guy he's shaking hands with might be the world champ in like two months. - Really? - That's Sondarov. That's the Uzbek kid. - Wow. - So that kid, yeah. At the time, he was like 14 or something. - Yeah, so he's playing for the world championship now. - I wanna see his handshake now. I wanna see how he did. - He's Uzbekistan, he leveled up the handshake. - Mm-hmm. - That's so funny. So back to this game in '78. There's another detail that's so funny. Is that, so basically Corsinoid's sitting there, getting hypnotized by the psychologist. He's got mirrored glasses. He's terrified that his brain is getting taken over by this guy. So it's a counter it. Corsinoid brought in two American members of the Ananda Marga sect, which is basically like a very specific like Hindu sect of, like it's a very specific like religious sect within Hinduism that I don't think even most Hindus really excited. knowledge, it's like a very niche group, and they, he basically brings them in as like yogis to teach him meditation to block out the bad hypnotic energy and vibes. The problem is that the two guys that he got from the specific sect had just been convicted of attempted murder for stabbing an Indian diplomat in Manila and were out on bail. So they were banned from the hall. So Cortinoid's own chief assessment, Raymond Keane, later called them tricksters, and that's why they weren't allowed to like actually be in the hall during the game, because they were like on trial at least. I shouldn't say convicted, I don't know the exact details, but they were under investigation for a murder. And that's why they couldn't get brought in. I didn't know that. Really? Wow, that's the story. I wonder, somebody 1978 could have a whole thing made about it, like a whole 30 for the 30 or whatever, you know, whatever they do now, because that's the same year that Bobby like bounces. No, he bounced a few years earlier, but yeah, it's the most insane world championship match ever, obviously, in case it's not clear. I didn't know that. How the hell do you even, like, there was no indeed back then, like there was so handy to yogis to come to the world. Yeah, no IG story. Yeah. Like this must have just been him like talking to his boy, like, dude, these guys get in my brain and he's like, I have just a guy for you, okay? I have two guys that are not only, uh, of spiritual masters, they will defend you physically. How old is Raymond Keen? Is he still alive? Um, I have no idea. We can look this up, uh, because he, you know, if he's still alive, he's got to write the book. Yeah, he's got to write, like, the tell all that's, um, it looks like he is still alive. It's like 78 years old. He was more than 48, so he's 78 years old. Yeah. This is always dangerous in chess. Like, is he still alive? And he's completely alive and hanging with his grandkids, playing games, having a great time. Telling them about 1978. Sorry, Raymond. I can't wait to read your book. It's going to be great. Yeah. As you know, the chess grandmaster, this, this guy has been around some stuff, man. Like he, look at this. He retired from play at 38, dude. 40 years ago. Wow. Yeah. And now he is a prominent chess organizer and it served as the course partner for the times. Oh, Raymond Keen. We need, we need the book, man. Yeah. I doubt there was NDAs back in the day, but I, I wonder if he was working because he was working with Kortinoid this time during the games, like he was like his like chief of staff, I guess. I don't know exactly what the, what his title was, his chief assistant. Yeah. And I'm assuming he was around when Kortinoid played a ghost. Yeah. We got to get into that. I don't know what the hell that was. This is why Kortinoid is my favorite player without really knowing anything else about him other than these two stories. Mm-hmm. So in 1985, there's a Swiss, what they call a Paris psychologist. Mm-hmm. And this is like a psychologist that's interested in like, sort of the supernatural world. So he talked Kortinoid into playing a full game against a dead grandmaster, naturally. So the way it would work is that he finds a medium, like someone that can talk to the dead and then ask him who he wants to play against. So basically they all work together. This guy's name is Wolfgang Eisenbess and he asked Kortinoid which dead legend he wanted to play against. And he's not on trial for murder. This guy, to my knowledge, has no involvement with violent crime, but that is just what's available on the internet. Kortinoid said, "I would like to play a couple Blanca." Okay. "Karis," or a guy named Geza, Mark Codes, is he? Yeah. "Maroxie." Yeah. That's what I said. And according to the organizer, only Maroxie answered. Okay. So now they get this medium. This guy, Robert Rollins. And he used automatic writing. Basically, he said that the spirit of Maroxie was coming through him and he was writing down the notation of what to do. Now, according to the story, again, this is not like a strict laboratory setting. This is a legend, as they say. Right. Robert Rollins doesn't know anything about chess. It has to get taught how to do notation like what it means. So he's a complete novice and each reply for each move took approximately 10 days. What the fuck? And then the game was played over eight years. So are you able to pull up the game on chess games? What the fuck? Because I need to get your take on this guy playing against Mark Codes. How do you present him? I also pronounce it wrong. I say "Maroxie," but it's like Maroxie or something. It's Hungarian. Okay. As long as we're both wrong, this other matters. You're more wrong. I think you're more wrong. You're more wrong. Mark Codes. No, I don't. Maroxie and they play over years and eventually the game ends in 1993. Now this guy, Maroxie, what is fascinating is that he dies in like, I think like the 30s or something. Yeah. But they're playing this game starting in 1985 until 1995. Until 1993. That's right. They play in that way. 1993, right? And so, Maroxie is a monster. 1904, 1907, he's arguably the best chess player on Earth, correct, yeah. And he's like playing and like training for like World Championships. And they have a game. And if we can pull up the game, you can see ultimately what happens. There's a lot of people that have weighed in on this and suggested that like, I just want you to see the game because I'm so fast in about your take-ins. Are you able to pull it up? If you want me to, I can send it to you. I gotta make some video about this. If I have permission, I never heard about this in my life. It's not my story. You gotta, yeah. I mean, you gotta talk to Maroxie through a medium to get his permission. Can you imagine like 20, when, when will I die? Let me, let me get like 50 more years. Can you imagine like 20, 85 of YouTube is still a thing just like, I'll play the game against God. This goes. Bitches. Yeah. I'm going to make that video. And you're going to, you're going to be alive like in a test tube or like, I'll be alive. I'm going to live a long time. Okay. And I'm going to make the video how I crush Gotham Chess from beyond the grave. And you're not going to have anything to say about it. You can't even, you can't even defend yourself. This is crazy. I'd be like, yeah, he blunders queen in the first five minutes. How is he so bad? Yeah. He's insane. So you, you could see you have a, Gazem, Maroxie slash Robo Rollins. I like that they put like the slash, like, yeah, you know, it's a slash and averse Victor Corson. So this is how it opens. Let's click through some of the moves here. Yeah. You 46, D4, D5. Yeah. Yep. Yep. I think this is an opening Corsonoy invented with black, if I'm not mistaken, because back in the day, you could just play an opening and nobody had played it before. Right. I'm named after you. Yeah. This is, yes, it's a very sharp game. Yep. Now we go to an endgame. And yeah, because black is up upon, he's just, I mean, it's math, right? At some point you'll win. You need some technique, a little pawn race. I mean, this is a fascinating game. Another pawn's going to, and then at this point, Maroxie resigns. Yeah. And that's the game. Eight years later. Yeah. You just watched eight years of chess. Yeah. In like 10 seconds. And it ends with Corsonoy winning by resignation against a dead grandmaster. Which is kind of nuts, because resigning here, just if anybody, I mean, do you have a screen on the podcast? Yeah. People are seeing this. So resigning here is actually kind of nuts, because if you think about it, white can just run their pawn all the way up the board, but black can't stop it. The way that black actually wins this position is giving up their first pawn, like the C pawn, and then has to like demonstrate technique. This game will be won by one square. Black is going to queen the pawn and white will be one square from queening. So it's a close resignation? Yeah. Like if this went on, they would have gone on another two years, probably. There's still some fucking techniques to demonstrate here. But we're talking about two grandmasters playing each other. We're talking about it. So what are the theories? So the theories that it was like a Turk situation, like the other guy was just. So the theory for it is that there is apparently a neuropsychiatrist named Vernon Nepp, who analyzed the game and said that Maroxi played a grandmaster level. And that's the ghost of this guy also allegedly dictated a 38 page life story about Maroxi. That supporters say got 79 of 81 checkable facts correct. So before even really playing the game, they were like, how do we know we're actually talking to the spirit of Maroxi? And they were asking questions that only he would know and things like that. Things that weren't verifiable on the internet or like the early internet at this point. Things that weren't verifiable through books like only like the family or direct close friends would know. And apparently it got a bunch of these checkable facts right. And again, they say like, yeah, this is a grandmaster level play. Bobby Fisher supposedly said it was also extremely high level, but again, that came second hand because he watched the notation. And there's a whole like basically they break down on what they call science, cyclopedia, which like documents, these kinds of like supernatural stories. And they say that according to this parapsychologist that was doing it, it was extremely high levels of accuracy about personal life that he knew about personal knowledge. And they say like, yeah, this is an illegitimate game against a ghost. Now the argument against is that no independent person watched the sessions. Right. So 10 days between moves is plenty of time for someone to call a friend, call an actual grandmaster, call a really competent player, look through books and then develop moves and then use the correct moves to then counter. One critic pointed out that there was a master level mind involved the whole time, which is Corsinoid himself. I was just about to say that's another possibility, right? Is it possible like Corsinoid is basically organizing a game against himself through this medium, making it look like he played a ghost? Who knows? It is strange that the medium, the guy that actually did this whole thing, he's not able to talk about it. because he died three weeks after the game ended. - Wow, he was old? - Or, I guess, I don't know, I don't even know how he passed away. And that's the story. Now, I saw a random comment on Reddit that I don't know if this is accurate, but they said that the op, so if there's a few things here, they said that Maroxi apparently told the medium that he was rusty, that he hadn't really been playing, but apparently 'cause he's dead. - Yeah, he's dead. - No chest tournament's in the afterlife, I see. - Yeah, you're in heaven, you know what he'd be playing chest, you know what I mean? So apparently he's like rusty, he's not really on his game, he's also older, and also the game had progressed so much from the thirties to the '80s. And apparently he played an opening that didn't exist at the time when he passed away. - Yeah, very possible. - I don't have it in front of me, but it was like a French opening. - Yeah, French existed, but that's sharp variation. The way that he played the line apparently didn't exist. Like now, I mean, even now in 2026, stuff that they played in the World Championship in 2000 wouldn't work. - Right, yeah. So people are like, okay, so there's a grand master that died that then plays a game 50 years later from the afterlife, but plays an opening that didn't exist while he was alive, and then still loses. And everyone's like, well, how does that make sense? So this is the argument against that somehow is corroborated to be some type of like hoax internally, either through the medium, through the organizer, this like Swiss parapsychologist or by cautionary himself or all of the above. - I have a very, I have a very like literal brain to the point that when I was in second grade, I had like extremely high math level, but my reading comprehension skills have a very famous story where, you know, one of those passages you read, and then you were asked questions, the test was called the Terra Nova, and they were like, how did the frog feel on like this line of the story? And you're supposed to read it and you're supposed to, you know, extrapolate based on the text, how it felt, and I put green, the frog felt green. It's like, obviously, I'm like seven, like you can, like I don't, you know, so I'm very literal. So when I hear something, I think three conclusions. Number one, they're, like it's actually supernatural, right? People actually can talk to the dead. Number two, coercionally played it against themselves, which is hilarious, like that's so funny. And number three, there's just like a person out there that hoax the whole thing, right? Like that was just a grandmaster coming into help, this Robert guy make the moves. Yeah, all those situations are fascinating to me. Fascinating. And it wouldn't be out of the character of Courtenewy to be down to play a game like this and like maybe kind of sell it. Fake the whole thing. That's so, he's such an eccentric guy. Yeah, he's eccentric, but I, very much like a fighter for justice, so you'd kind of be like, why would he do that, you know? So maybe not. Maybe not. Interesting. Maybe not, but reading people's like impossible. You really have no idea, right? So mind blowing. What's up guys, we're gonna take a break really quick because I gotta tell you something. I had one of those days recently where I woke up super tired, I drank coffee, and then I drank more coffee because I was tired. I trained badly because I had too much coffee, and then I couldn't sleep because I had too much coffee. And the frustrating part is I'm doing all the things. I'm lifting, I'm eating protein, I'm taking creatine, I'm trying to sleep. I'm occasionally fasting because someone on YouTube told me it was good, but sometimes I'm still walking around feeling like I'm only charged to like 60%. And that is what got me thinking so seriously about testosterone. 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Yeah, yeah, this one's sick. This one is wild. So he's a chest organizer in Virginia in the '50s. And he's pretty good. He's organizing games. He's even the state federation's rating statistician. So he's running the numbers, giving the ratings for all the people of the state of Virginia and rated himself at this point in the '50s a 1956. So he's like, "I'm pretty good." And then he goes to prison or gets arrested for burglary and forgery. Okay. And this is like in 1969. And then he gets out of prison. Nine days later, kills his own mother. Damn. - Don't put your body somewhere. - Wow. - They find him, they confirm that he's the one that did it. Apparently he did it because after his father died, he believes that he was owed a massive inheritance. And this is part of the reason why he was doing the forgery and the burglary because he was like, "My dad passed away. "I'm entitled to a bunch of money. "My mom's not giving it to me." Okay. So I'm gonna like forge checks in her name, gets arrested, comes out and is like, "You know what? "I'm taking my mom out." Apparently he was like telling people like, "Well, he was in prison for a short stint." Like when I get out of here, I'm taking my mom out 'cause she owes me money, she stole from me. Gets out of prison, kills his own mother. To my understanding, that's the story. Goes to prison, gets sentenced to death. His death sentence is commuted because like the state of Virginia, I think like takes away death sentences or says the way that they were doing it at the time is like unconstitutional. So now we get the life sentence. While he's in prison, he becomes the number two ranked player in the country. I thought it was even number one. But maybe. Maybe he got as high as that. But to my understanding, he goes to prison and then becomes like the best. The way that he does it is he goes to prison again as a pretty competent chess player and starts teaching people how to play chess. - Yep. - And gets guys onto the game and then plays in like this closed pool then also starts playing games via mail. So people are mailing him in like their moves and he's mailing the back moves and he's playing games over long periods of times. Hundreds, thousands of games over this entire life sentence. And he's, there he is. It's a pretty ghoulish-looking guy, if I do say so myself, with all due respect. He's a pretty scary, if I do say. - Second highest, yeah. Combski was one, yeah. - And basically he's teaching these inmates how to play. And so they're unrated and inexperienced. So he starts obtaining USCF memberships for them. - Yeah. - Which the USCF is like the-- - US chess federation. - And that's like how you organize like your chess ranking, basically? - For over the board tournaments, yeah. - So some accused blood good with his intimate knowledge of the rating system to rig the ratings. The accusation was that he arranged for new prisoners to play rated games against other prisoners who would deliberately lose. Thus giving the new inmate an inflated rating. It's further alleged that they then played rated games against the new highly rated prisoner in each time he would win and then gain more and more rating points. This continued for several years that by 1997, his rating rose to 2,759. Making the 59 year old blood good, the second highest rated player in the nation behind only-- - Combski. - Combski. - Yeah. - Crazy. Pretty crazy. There's a lot of stuff to unpack here. I will summarize this pretty quickly. So by saying, yeah, this elo system for over the board chess. Right now on chess.com, if anybody listening to this just plays you get instant feedback plus nine, minus nine, whatever. Manipulating your rating is pretty crazy 'cause parents in the US chess federation have been doing this for like a decade. So if their kid is like on pace to become, the number one ranked player for their age, what they would do is that they would go to a four game tournament on a weekend where you're supposed to play four games. The kid would win one game and they'd be like, oh, after this tournament, my kids are gonna be 22-01. And they leave the tournament. - Wow. - Which is not. Imagine dropping out of a tennis tournament. - Have you won one game? - Yeah. They should calculate it only if you finish the tournament. - Right. - They calculate just like one game and parents have been doing this forever. So the point that people will rig chess tournaments like just for the sole purpose of gaining rating. There have been schools and districts like in coaches that rigged an entire group of kids as a rating and then brought them to the national championship. - Wow. - Did they get dusted? If their rating is rigged, they're gonna get crushed. - The hour they get in trouble or like they deliberately keep their rating low and then they'll win a subsection. So a section of only under 2000, but people will be rated 1980. So in chess for a long time, there was something called sand bagging. So you would go to these money tournaments where first place is 10 grand and you're playing people who have been above the rating of the category for years. But right before the tournament, they just dropped their rating. - Interesting. - And yeah, the last thing-- - It's almost like a weight class. - Yeah, you just look really-- - Except it's illegal. - But like if you like to touch your weight way, way down, then you can fight smaller people even though you're physically bigger. - Yes, I guess the only drawback there is you might kill yourself weight-cutting whereas in chess, like your rating dropping doesn't mean anything. - Right. - This happens during COVID. People were playing these online tournaments. and they were getting them rated because they were called hybrid tournaments. So you, like, you and I could just, like, meet here. We'd have a Fede Arbiter, and we would play against two Serbians on the other side of the planet. And we would win, and they would count for our regular rating, which doesn't make any sense. Like, how do you enforce anti-cheating? Like, how do you. How can you play somebody in LA versus somebody in Serbia? That's a nine hour time difference. - Yeah. - Yeah. - So. - That's fascinating. Yeah, no, this has been going on for a long time. The blood-good case was difficult because his rating was so high, he technically was eligible to get invited to the US chess championship. - Yep. - So he himself denied the accusations. You know, he's like, look, I'm an upstanding citizen. I've never done anything wrong. And now you guys are coming here to spend my face and accuse me of cheating. He's like, I would never do that. And so he's doing all these competitions. At one point, he even goes to a competition with another inmate, this guy, Lewis Kaplanier. Kaplanier. And they receive like a furlough from prison to go play in a chess tournament. The two of them go out. The guard that's with them is kind of just like an old, kind of a schlubby guy. And he's like, God, I mean, he's like, all right, so you guys are gonna go play a tournament? Go, yeah, yeah. So he's like standing there watching them. They overpower him and escape. - Yeah. - They break out of prison and then get recaptured a few days later. - Okay. - Yeah. I feel like back then you could escape from prison and like, be all right. - Yeah, right. - It's not that many cameras. - Yeah. - Just go like hide in like a bush somewhere. Right, just wait it out, change your name. - Yeah. - If you move a town over, everyone's like, oh, I guess that guy's gone. - Yeah, well, I didn't. - I didn't realize he lived the rest of his life in prison. - Yep, that in prison. - So as his rating would go up, he wrote to the USCF to warn them that his system was prone to close pool rating inflation. But nothing was done until his rating got so high. And then by virtue of his rating, he should have been invited to this very prestigious tournament only for the top 16 players in the country. - Yep. - This cause an investigation. They didn't know what to do. So like, technically this guy's the best, but he's in prison, should we let him play? Should we try to find a way to let him do it? And they said that he was not able to play because of this closed pool of rating inflation thing and they changed their rating system because of him in many, amongst other reasons, but he's one of the main reasons. And then he tried to like get out of prison by doing like all sorts of things. He was like, I was born in Germany and then he was like, I was born in Mexico. So extradite me to those countries. He also claimed to have been a Nazi spy during World War II. So he was just in prison just like sand stuff. And then he tried to convince like a bunch of interviewers that he was like completely innocent and then he ended up dying of lung cancer in 2001. But he did invent an opening to my understanding. It's called the Norfolk Gambit. And I have a Virginia. - Yes, right? - Which is where he was originally from. So Germany. - Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, sorry. - Mexico. - Yeah, exactly. He's actually German the whole time. And it was a Nazi spy. - And of course, Norfolk, yeah. (laughing) - I know it's very early, huh? - Yeah, it's better than I, it's Norfolk. - So I just think Crestos the Norfolk Gambit. I'm so curious what you think of this. - I didn't even know that he invented an opening. Maybe I did. - There's a lot of weird chess players. - I love them. - I love them. - The weirder the better. That's like the thing that I'm so drawn to. Like I'm into characters. I like people that are like interesting. So this is allegedly how it goes. Again, I don't know enough about chess and understand what's going on here, but if we can click through, we can see some of the moves. - Oh, okay. - Peace, yeah. - On the bottom right, there's an arrow. You might be able to click through, oh, yeah. - Or if you just click on the chess board and then right click again on your keyboard. - Okay. - Okay. Oh, go back. We missed the point of the Gambit. So if we go back, go back, go back, go back, go back here. So, wait, night forward. So that Queen D4 move. You have to click that second note, not that one. You gotta go back. And then with your mouse, you have to click Queen D4. Yeah, you gotta put it on that square where it's highlighted. - That. - Yep. So you see how it's attacking the rook in the night. So this is a trap because go forward. Like you can right click. So you give up your bishop. The Queen takes the bishop. And now you trap the Queen. Yeah. And so you try to run away with the Queen, keep going. And then you get hit with this move. And then you block, and then the night draws back. And now the Queen is trapped. Or okay, they have to play that move and lose their Queen. Wow. So I guess he allegedly, it would kind of make sense that his opening is deeply rooted in deviance and deception and the theatricality and deception. So you feel like this is a bit of a kind of a hustler move. It's total bullshit. But I think I've actually seen Magnus catch somebody with this in blitz. The story that I read is that Magnus played a nond and did this opening. Oh yeah, maybe. Yeah, in a speed game, definitely not a slow game. Yeah, in a speed game. Yeah, for sure. And it's easy to like. Yeah, it's easy. Well, I don't think Anon felt for the trap. I probably not. I don't know the outcome of that game was I doubt it. But the fact that, again, if we're taking the story literally, there is a convicted murderer that goes to prison becomes the American number two develops a gambit that then the greatest chess player of all time then uses for memes against a legend. It's a pretty good story. It's not. And this wasn't even that long ago. For me, like ancient history is even like mid 20th century. Because I know stuff happened, but it's so far away. But like this was in 2000, this is the thing. Like Komsky is playing chess to this day. Yeah. You know, he was the American champion, like four-time champion. I don't know. He was fending off his title against a. Yeah. He was looking out like, who the fuck is Claude Blanket? Like, what is the fact that he's a murderer? Yeah. And his name is Bloodgood. I know. I can't. You can't even script that. It's like two on the nose. Yeah. But this is a phenomenon that they call nominative determinism. This is what I was telling you about before. This is this like. It's a. If you can pull up a definition. A thing that sociologists have identified where your name can. In many cases, indicate your outcome in profession, right? So for example, they did a massive data set in like 2005, where they looked at all the dentists in America. And they found a higher proliferation of dentists named Dennis. Dennis obviously being the root word of, of, of dent of like dental. Uh-huh. It's that there's like apparently a high frequency of cardiologists with the last name heart, pump, or pain. A bunch of dermatologists with the, with the name's Boyle or Hickey. There's a plastic surgeons with the name's Carver Mole and Price that, that appear with high frequency. Wow. Kind of crazy. I mean, I think about this from myself. I love marketing. My name. Oh, I was thinking your last name. Yeah. Okay. I was. No, I was. You think my last name was like, oh, I gag, or I have no gag reflex, man. I didn't say that. I just, every, every example we used was the last name. And then. Just interesting. Bring that up in my last name. We'll let the record show. I thought for the longest time my last name meant victory. Oh, 'cause Gagné. Gagné. Yeah. And so like. I thought your last name was pronounced Gagné, no? It is pronounced Gagné. Yeah. But I've lived my whole life being like Gagné means victory. Like if you buy a lottery ticket and like you win a lottery ticket in Montreal or Quebec, the machine you'll buy don't be like Gagné. Oh, yeah. Gagné. Like Gagné. I think it'll straight up say Gagné. So I was like, dude, my last name is like the conjugated version of victory and like winner. Like that's awesome. There's a legendary hockey player on Simon Gagné, right? A bunch. Yeah. But then I looked it up further. Apparently Gagnéau might actually just mean farmer. Ah. I broke my heart. I was like, what? Like if you looked up on Google's, like, yeah, it's a farmer. So have you done this for my name? Precisely right. Oh, boy. So Levy. I mean, obviously, I think it's like tied to like the tribes of Israel, Levi, like one of the founders of the 12 crowns. I think so. My great grandfather was named Levy. So I think my mom like Americanized my name and made it. My first name is a last name. It's not a real name. It's like people have the last name Levy. Yeah. It's a good point. But my name is not a real thing. Right. You Levy taxes. That's what you. Yeah. Okay. I do pay them. I pay them. You pay a lot of taxes. On time. I get refunds and shit. All right. So leave me alone. Yeah. Young pig. That's. Oh, wait. That's yours. Not mine. Why are you laughing? That's a good connection. I like them. I'm the young pig, dude. Garthong. I like them. Fears are aggressive, man. I wouldn't, I wouldn't mess with you. What about Rosman? Let's do Rosman. Let's see what that is. I recently discovered. So on my side of the family, I am the last male Rosman, like my older relative didn't have kids. No. So, but there are other Rosman's in Slovakia. Oh. Don't know how that happened. One of them is a chess player. Really? Yeah. Like, her name is Monica Rosman. She's related to you? I don't think so. I mean, technically. Probably. Wow. I doubt there's that many Rosmans, but. Okay. So, yeah. Levy's a Hebrew name, Levi. Meaning, joined, attached, joining. Oh. Okay. Now, Rosman, this is interesting. One document in origin means horseman. Dude, we should work together. Yeah. Farmer horse. Exactly. Now, think about this. So, Rosman. Hmm. Now, you worked with a company called Chesley. Is that correct? Correct. Yeah. It's my company. Oh. Yeah. Oh, it's your company. Could you look up Chesley? This is like the work of a mentalist. You know? But. But there's a really good reason for the logo of this company. Yeah. The logo of the company is so fascinating. It is really. It's fascinating. So, the logo of. - Go to Images real quick. The logo of the company is what is that there? That looks like a horse. - Yeah, it is. Yeah, look at that. Nominative determinism or something like that. No further questions. - You kinda got me. (laughing) - In my defense, ches.com took the pawn as a logo and Chesa bull took the rook as a logo. - Wow. - So I was like, well, do we do Knight, King, Queen? - But for some reason, you could have chose so many different pieces, but for some reason-- - I'm horseman. - You pick the horse. - 'Cause you're a levy the horseman. - Yeah. - I mean, unreal, right? Like, come on, guys, there's got, I mean, no one clapped. All right, whatever. - See, if we were on Flaker and Andrew would say, and he's called horse for other reasons. - Yeah. - And then that's, you know-- - A song like "A". - Anyway, I mean, pretty, I mean, that's, you can just take that, that's free. You can just use that whenever you want. - That is, that is pretty sweet. - We have a couple more legends, okay? We're gonna rip a couple more. - Yeah, let's go. - This one is at the very bottom of the iceberg that was created by this gentleman on Reddit. Or a woman, again, we don't know. And this is the Antarctic Chess Ismer, Axmerder. - Yeah. - Have you heard of this? - No. - So at Vostok, this is urban legend. Again, this is not verified. You can't really, there's not a ton on this, but it's in the Chess lore. Vostok Station is a Soviet now Russian research base in the middle of Antarctica. - Yeah. - It recorded the lowest natural temperature ever measured on Earth at negative 128.6 degrees Fahrenheit. Months of darkness, handful of people, nowhere to go, stuck on a base. - Yeah. - A bunch of Russians on a base, what are they gonna do? - Yeah, they're gonna play chess. - They're gonna play chess. 1959, a scientist at Vostok supposedly lost a game of chess and was so enraged that he snapped and murdered the person he was playing against with an axe. - After this, as the legend goes, the Soviets banned Chess at their Antarctic station. - Now, there are no names, no records or details, and a lot of them get changed in the story, but that is the legend as to why Chess is banned at the Soviet base in Antarctica. - If you think about it, the chance that this got out and made news is like, there was like, how many people there are three or one died? And one killed him. But you would probably mention it. If you were the guy that was like, yeah, I was up next. - Yeah, what do you even do? Like if there's four of you and one guy killed another guy playing chess, what do you do now? - Finish the game. (laughing) - Yeah, you just, how does that, there's no HR. - Yeah, I don't know what the fallout of that is being like, hey dude, I think you kinda went far on that one. - I wonder if they went through the game. I wonder if they were like, yeah, you actually need a, you can't castle at this point. - How do you even, how do they even contact back home? - Some radio with three days later. - That's pretty, I mean, this is like a canon chess experience wanting to attack someone with an axe after a game you play. - That's the thing, the story is so unbelievable because there's not enough data or information to actually verify it, but the experience is the most believable thing in the entire planet. - That was assaulted after a chess game. - What happened? - Oh, growing up, I played at the Susan Polgar chess club in Queens and I had a friend there named James Shaw, hope he's doing well. And yeah, it was just like teasing him after a game and just like this, he picked up a knight and he threw it like point blank, straight up my head. - No. - And he hit me. - And you still have the scar to this day. - I don't know if this is a scar from there, but I might have just been born with this, but yeah, he hit me straight in the face. - He hit you with what? The knight? - A horse. - There you go. - Guys, I mean, it's like, it's the sea. - That's, now you're getting into the camp spirit. - Yeah, yeah. - Yeah, it's all connected, dude. - That kind of makes sense now. - Now, in fairness, the Soviet explorers did hold a five month chess championship in Antarctica in 1978. So if there was a total ban, that kind of goes in the face of that. - Growing up, I played a guy in the Marshall Chess Club here in New York City. His name was Yefrem Zatz, Z-A-T-S. And he was like, in his 80s when I was a teenager. So I hope he's still alive. He hasn't played that much chess recently. He learned to play chess in the Arctic Circle. - No way. - He was stationed in a military base in the Arctic Circle and he learned to play chess there and became like a 2,000 level player at 80 years old. Now, he would be 98 now. That's crazy. So when I was playing him, he was like in his 80s. - Wow. - And he was a 2,000 plus rate of player. - Was he pretty good? - Yeah, he was good. - He beaten you. - He might have beaten me, he was slow. So like, when the game got low on time, he might have struggled 'cause you know, you got to be a little fast moving the pieces. But I remember when he would surrender like after a game, he would just like silently just go. Like he wouldn't say anything. - Put it there in the corner. - Yeah, wow. - And he would call his wife between games. It was very cute. - That's kind of nice. - I guess he hasn't played since 20, 20, 20, 20, 20. I mean, maybe he passed away. But yeah, that flat line doesn't look good. - No. - It doesn't inspire a lot of confidence though. - But a good life, you know? A long time. You gotta hang out in the Arctic Circle. He's probably got some stories from over there. You gotta ask him. - Because apparently in 2018, this is a real story at the Bellinghausen station, which I presume is like another Antarctic like research facility. An engineer stabbed a colleague and was charged with attempted murder, not anything to do with us. - Oh. - It was over book spoilers. - I guess you get bored there, huh? Just like, it's like this isn't it, right? - It's kind of prison where you have to research and get paid for. - Yeah, you probably get a little cabin fever. - Right. - I mean, that's kind of wild. Someone spoils a book. I mean, I get it. - Yeah. - You're at the end of Harry Potter. - No, yeah, he's like easily. - Yeah, you know? - Even now sometimes I say something on a stream and someone's like spoilers. I'm like, if you haven't watched Harry Potter right Harry Potter, it's kind of your fault. - Right? - Yeah. - Hey guys, we're gonna take a break really quick because I'm gonna tell you about GLD. Yeah, GLD sent me this chain. The chain that I'm wearing right now, if you've ever seen an episode of this show for the past like probably nine months, I'm wearing this exact chain. And sometimes brands will send you stuff and they'll be like, yeah, try other thing and every now and again, you're like, all right, whatever. This one is actually amazing. What impressed me is how substantial it feels in your hand. Like, it actually has a real weight. Like, the clasp feels extremely well made. It feels like really durable and it looks even better in person. It's comfortable to wear and it kind of elevates every single outfit that I'm putting on without having to overthink it. Their pieces are sweat proof, waterproof, and made to be durable and guaranteed for life. I literally wear this every single day. I never take it off. And what's amazing is that GLD has something for every style and price point. From an 18 karat gold plated piece to a solid gold piece with natural diamonds and they have collaborations with like the NFL, NBA, WMBA, MLB. Literally anything you can imagine, there's something there for you. I mean, obviously, as a Catholic, I had to bust out the crucifix, but they have crosses that are for Protestants even. They got everything you can imagine. So if you want to elevate any outfit, GLD is for you. And for a limited time, only new customers are getting an insane deal. You're gonna go to GLD.com and use the code camp and you're gonna get 40% off. Yeah, 40% off with the code camp at GLD.com. You can get the exact same crucifix that I'm wearing right now. Maybe we put that in the description so people can see exactly the one that I'm wearing. And after you purchase, they're gonna ask where you heard about GLD. Make sure you tell them that Mark and Crestos from the campsite sentia. Okay, now it wouldn't be an episode of camp without talking about aliens, right? So I think I know where we're going. I think you exactly know where it's gone. There's a guy, and you're gonna have to help me with his name, Kier Sun, Ilum Jinif. Kier Sun, Ilum Jinif. Yeah, it was good. Thank you. Yeah. At 31, he becomes the president of a Russian republic. Call me Kier, right? That's correct. And his first decree made chess mandatory in schools. I agree with that. So far, he's on a great street. Yeah. I'm fully on board with everything he's been saying. And then from 1995 to 2018, he ran Fede. Yep. Which can you explain what Fede is? The internet, it's Fifa, just a little less prestigious. (laughing) It's the international governing body of chess, yes. And they run basically global chess. World championship. Like yeah. So he ends up beating Kasborov in an election at one point. Yeah, Kasparov quit competitive chess. He was the goat for a long time, maybe still to this day. Tressed to run against Kier Sun, yeah. I also didn't know the flying penis thing was him. Oh, yeah, yeah, there was like a clip of a flying dick. He got a talk. He's doing a speech. Yeah. And on a drone comes a flying penis. Yeah. And like one of the guys like swatze it out of the way. And like just completely disrespect. Like insane disrespect against Kasborov, but also hilarious. Uh-huh. Like two things could be true. And but anyway, this guy Kier Sun, he is doing his thing. But in 1997, he claims this later on. But he says that in September of 1997, he was abducted by beings in yellow spacesuits that took him from his Moscow apartment to their spaceship. And he repeated this on Russian national TV, pinning the day to September 18th. He says that he spoke telepathically. And three people in the apartment were apparently witnesses. So he's in like a guarded apartment because he's a state official, correct. And according to his guards, they couldn't find him for a period of hours. They didn't know where he was, everyone was kind of panicked, and then he sort of reappears in his apartment. Now, when he reappears, he says that he had interactions with these entities that told him things about chess. So they basically says that chess came from space. Okay. The theory is that like, again, I think the story kind of changed. So I, Kier Sun, if you're watching this, I'm sorry if I get any of this wrong. But my understanding is that like he says that aliens basically gave us chess. And his reasoning was like, the rules are the same everywhere you go. We don't really know like where it came from. Like we have like general ideas, but like the game is so perfect and so precise. And the elements of the sport are just like, immaculate that it must be divine. Like the what it does to people's. brains like it elevates consciousness and spread around the world so quickly, and he claims that it came from aliens. Were like Indians offended when Kirsten said the game was invented by aliens? I'm sure they were. Because they claim it. I'm sure they weren't stoked on it. And the same way Egyptians are pissed when people are like, "The aliens built it." Yeah. I'm sure they're like, "Hey, this is like one of our big contributions to the world." You know what I mean? Amongst many things, we made chess, and he's like, "No, there's no way you could have made it. I don't even perceive that." I don't even know. It's crazy Kirsten was Fidet President until 2018. Mm-hmm. That's just like, less than 10 years ago. I think he's running again. In July of 2026, he announced that he was running for Fidet President again, and the Russian chess federation is backing him. But his name wasn't on the final ballot. Yeah. Yeah. I saw something similar. Maybe he'll run in the next cycle. I mean, do you have a better theory as to why chess spread around the world so quickly? In the last five years or since the dawn of time? It's a great question. No. Well, you know, Sultankan. He was on the thing. He was on the iceberg. But yeah. He's a fascinating story. Yeah. He was from, I think, modern day Pakistan. He learned chess. I don't even know from where. And just like-- Pretty late in life. Yeah. Like in his 20s. And he just like arrived in Europe. I don't think he could like communicate in any way with the people there. I don't think he spoke any English. I don't know. By the end of his life, he had learned. Yeah. He was like a Grandmaster level player. Yeah. I think he became like the first South Asian Grandmaster. To my understanding. Yeah. I don't know exactly what it is. Because I think technically the first Grandmaster from South Asia is Niasmarshad, who I actually played and beat an tournament. No way. Yeah. I might be Niasmarshad. Wow. We can look this up. N-I-A-Z-M-U-R-S-H-E-D. I played a minute tournament, and then he beat me, I think, but he was one of my earliest Grandmaster wins. I think he might have been my first Grandmaster win in a tournament. Wow. But he, I believe, is the first South Asian Grandmaster. Or second. I mean, how'd that feel? It was probably nice to beat it. That was one of the best tournaments I ever played. Yeah. I, in 2016. I am. Niasmarshad of Bangladesh. Yep. Wow. I wonder. I read something about Sultan Khan, that he had achieved something. He was the first of something. I mean, he was. I don't think they gave out Grandmaster titles back then. They started giving them out in the 1950s. Oh, really? So he's not a Grandmaster. Oh, interesting. Yeah, elite level of international chess. He won the British Championship, yeah. Yeah. Wow. But they didn't have GMs. They didn't have a GM title. Oh, they say he was the first South Asian, and more broadly, the first Asian player to reach the very top tier of international chess. Yeah. Yeah, that's for sure. And I don't think Pakistan has had, like, a very strong player since we need to run it back to, we need to create the Sultan Khan School in the middle of Karachi. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know why it's like that. But there are just some places that chess is just not that big in Pakistan. It's huge. Yeah. You know, a lot of, like, very big countries. And there's so many great players that come out of India. You would think it's like, either right next to each other, similar people, don't start this. Don't start this. Don't start this. Don't start this. I'm sorry. We're about to be back on the iceberg. Amat, yeah. So. Can you pull the iceberg back up? Yeah, yeah. I played him in a non-broadcast game. So I'm kind of like that. Crowley. Yeah. Oh, no, I totally fucking. I fucking suck. No, I did beat him. It was in. With the help of aliens and demons. Yeah. They were helping. It's in our record on U.S. chess, for sure, but at 2016 Philly, I think we played. But it wasn't like a broadcasted game. Wow. Yeah. Now, I have one more story that I want to share with you. But if there's anything on here, specifically in the lower levels that you know about, that you want to weigh in on, I would love to know if there's anything that jumps out of you. No, I think you're going to tell me about Pichushkin. Yes. I think we can go there. I mean, there's some of the U.S. to star losers would not have the great time, apparently, if they lost. Or the creepy crawly formation. Do you know what that one? That's just like a chess opening. Some of this stuff is like kind of nonsense. It's just, you know, yeah, creepy crawly is like some. Some chess opening. Oh, not. Steinitz beat God. Have you heard that one? No. Have you heard of this guy's Steinitz? Yeah, of course. I can't. All right, I'm not bad. Sorry. Yeah, first of all. I don't know where he is. But apparently he had a claim. I don't know where this is from or who claimed it. But like, I have to beat God. I found out that chess and religious books are in the same category in the New York Times West sellers list. Really? Yeah. Advise how to miscellaneous. So, I got to take on like atomic habits, let them theory, and like God. Because you have a book right here. Correct. So, I got it. I got it. Yeah. So, I think we're on good track. But when I found that out, I was like, that's ridiculous. But no, I don't know anything about the Steinitz. But you're going head to head with God. I might be if it's coming out on the same week, yeah. Like the Bible? I don't think the Bible is dropping. I'm pretty sure that's already out. But I mean, you would think they would come up with another addition. If I'm the Bible publisher, I'd be like, new updated with a new forward. Like the school textbooks every year. Exactly. They brought Hill. They figured it out. Yeah. Where are the people of the Bible company doing? I don't know. Now, apparently he made a claim at one point that he played God. All right. So, this comes from like chest notes or chesthistory.com. But he basically said, like, yeah, I had this vision and played God. Now, there's a bunch of these stories, and again, there's contradicting versions. It is like an urban legend. But according to one story, he claimed to be giving God odds of pawn and move. I don't even really know what that means. That means you start with an extra pawn and then God goes first, which I guess, that just means God is white. Okay. Yeah. I guess the white pieces. Yes, the white pieces. Correct. Yes. Now, the psychology of the chess player is a book written in the 50s. One story says that he claimed to be an electrical communication with God and that he could give, again, pawn and move to God. No mediums. It's just direct contact. That's what he says. Now, we'll end with maybe the most morbid, but crazy story of all. Oh, yeah. This is. Did you look into this one, when I sent it to? A little bit. Had no idea that this ever happened, which is great. It's wild. So we're going to Moscow. Okay. This is like half of today was a movie. That's what makes again, chest, like so interesting because the Russians are such a fascinating people. The fact that the game is so concentrated in this place gives it so much great lore. Yeah. USSR. Like, so much Russian, like, great art and poetry, like a little bit alcohol mixed in and Arctic circles, aliens. The Russians got it all. So this is like late '90s, 2000s. There is this place called Bicevsky Park. It is near Moscow, near like a, you know, like a poor Moscow suburb. And it became like kind of a park where people just kind of go congregate and, you know, they had chest tables there where people would go like hustle, chest. So in 2001, men started disappearing. So a lot of them were like, kind of like homeless, sort of like, kind of like vagrant, kind of like wandering guys that kind of like disappears and like, oh, has anyone seen Steve? I was like, no, we haven't seen Steve. So between May and July, 10 men vanish after being seen alone in or around the wooded area. And these disappearances continue for years. And then in November, 2005, a retired police officer disappears during a walk and then is found dead in the woods from severe blunt force trauma. Mm-hmm. Now at this point, people look at this and they go, something's going on, right? These guys are not going missing. There's a serial killer that's around this neighborhood. So now the neighborhood believes that there's a killer in the park. They start calling it the Bicevsky Park Maniac and he becomes one of like the most feared kind of like urban legends in the area and people stop going to the park. But there's one person that continues to go to the park and his name's Alexander Puchishkin. And he loves going to the park because that's where he plays chess. Now according to what we can know about in his early life, this guy was bullied relentlessly in his younger years. He had like a learning disability of some say that he experienced like a head trauma playing on like a park as a kid and like fell off a swing and then the swing hit him in the head and he got like a frontal lobe damage. So as a result, he's going to school and he's not really doing that well. And he's getting transferred around to different schools and just having a hard time getting bullied by kids relentlessly. And his grandfather teaches him how to play chess. And apparently this unlocks something in his mind. He just is fascinated with chess. He's apparently really proficient. And to everyone's amusement, they're like, wow, this young kid Alexander, who everyone bullied is actually a chess genius. And so he starts climbing the ranks, he's playing local tournaments, he's playing people on the park and he's really, really good at chess and gives him a sense of purpose. And then he starts going to the park as like a young kid and playing against older guys in the park and they kind of take them under their wing. They're like, hey, you're one of us now. You're a park chess player. You come out, you drink, and we all play chess. And that's like his community. And so for him, abandoning this park is like a big moral dilemma. He's like, look, I don't care who's out there. I don't care what's going on. I want to play. And he keeps on doing it. And this is like really important to him. So he's playing in the park, he's doing this thing and he ends up going to the park with a co-worker that he knows from the grocery store that he's working with, this woman named Larissa. This is in April of 2006. And they are talking, they go into the park, she's like, he's sure we should go into the park. It seems pretty dangerous. And he's like, I've been going to this park since I was like six years old. It's fine. Okay. Like if there's something there, we'll run. Like it's a park. Yeah. So they go to the park and they kind of start walking down one of the trails and they get deep into the park and the woman starts kind of getting nervous. Like they look up in the sky. The sky is getting dark and gloomy. The sun is starting to set. And she's like, should we go back? And he's like, let's just finish the cigarette. You know, we'll go back. in a second and they start chatting and they're continuing to kind of like go on like a date basically and she stops at one point because they stop getting off the trail now they're just kind of like in the woods like where this giant park is and they're alone and she looks at him and goes you're the killer and she and he goes yeah and she goes are you gonna kill me he goes and then pulls out a weapon and kills her throws her body like into like a bog and infamously like his calling card as he would take like these bottles of vodka and like leave them on the body as almost like like an omen like a cut like that was like his signature and then he goes back and continues to kill other people at that point he's now killed her and he kills another woman yeah this woman right before they go to the park again the same sort of MO tells someone in her family like hey I'm going to the park with Alexander and they go okay they find her dead they investigate Alexander and he basically confesses to everything tells them everything that happened he goes yeah I did it and I've killed this many people and basically just like opens up the whole book and is like really sadistic with the way he's explaining everything he's like this is who I am I did everything I killed these people this is how I did it like he apparently would take people like the early on and throw them into a well and when you throw them into the well like the well would basically like take them out into like an underwater like channel on their bodies would just be gone forever so like he was just getting away with it for years the craziest part is that early on he takes one of these people throws them in the well and they survived they climbed out of the well went to the local police station they were like hey this guy Alexander that I don't from playing chess in the park tried to kill me through me in a well I escaped they take them to the hospital the police come by take a statement and the police go hey just drop it and the police basically don't investigate and let him continue killing like dozens of people after the fact it like this happened with two people that that survived so they go and investigate them and they discover who he is they go through his apartment and they find a notebook containing all of the notes of all the people that he allegedly killed and they find a 64 square chess board where he's filling in the names on the chess board of all of his victims and his thought initially was oh I'm going to kill as many people as I can to fill the chess board and like he had this perverse like relationship with chess and murder and just like he said later on like throughout the trial he's like I have to kill killing is like the thing it gives me life it makes me feel like God and was just a true sadistic serial killer that was also obsessed with chess and was like mixing chess and like his God complex perversion with being a serial killer ends up getting sentenced and lives life in a Russian prison in the middle of what like basically is like the Arctic they call it like I think it's called the snow owls what the name of the place is well sounds yeah sounds like a counter strike map yeah literally and is one of the most absurd he's one of like the most feared like criminals because he had no remorse yeah at one point they attribute like 40 murders to him and he goes no no no it's actually closer like 60 it's actually like because he wanted to like get credit for more of them because he's like so twisted and yeah he ends up getting convicted in 2007 of 49 murders three attempted murders and asked the Russian court to try to bring his death whole up and while he was in court he was housed in a glass cage for his own protection and as of today he's still alive spending days in solitary confinement in the Arctic penal colony known as the polar out wow crazy well I guess we I don't I don't know if we would know if he did I don't I don't think they would like broadcast I don't know I don't know if that message really get out but apparently he had to spend like the first like 20 years in solitary confinement yeah in a polar penal colony and the Arctic Circle I wonder if they've ever made like a criminal minds or something about somebody like this because yeah this is normal I mean I don't follow this subject closely because I I feel too much empathy for the victims in cases like this like I almost don't want to hear about it yes I'm just like I'm like oh my god this is so brutal and I spared you some of the more more I know I know I'm not not saying in this case specifically but like yeah I'm just like this is that's that's completely nuts there's a documentary called the chessboard killer that like goes through the whole case but if you get an image of him you can see kind of who this guy was and yeah just like sadistic he would just go to the park and play chess and then also is a serial card at the same time those people usually like look normal right like they seem like kind of like normal kind of you know park chess guys and he looks generally pretty normal this is the place where is that polar owl and yeah he lives alone after conflicts with celimates the fact that he's a polar owl can we get a picture of a polar polar owl looks like he developed a relationship through letters yeah that's that's usually what happens a woman named Natalia told an interviewer that he proposed in 2012 after the correspondence whoa that is wild okay that's a polar owl I mean they're pretty cool I mean they're a good name for a so yeah that's that's what he looks like that was him like on trial to like a glass cage he looks like seven different Russian grandmasters like he just looks like a guy named Sasha yeah right like I got like three Sasha's in my family one of my best friends is named Sasha like yeah it's nuts you know great dude is just yeah wild right it's just like the most insane story is just out here apparently it goes there's like even like other crazier lore where like he was with a friend when he was like 15 and him and the friend were talking and he was like I would like to kill someone his friend was like yes sounds cool let's do it so they go out to the woods I mean it's like Russia right it's like minus 30 every day star there's a forest and they were like let's just give it a try I think a lot of stories like that are come out of Russia just like either serial crimes or serial I remember there was a book growing up that I read huge mistake my mom was a big mystery and crime writer and now she's like a science writer yeah she went to journalism school but back in the day yes she would write thriller stuff and I picked up one of her books back in the day called child 44 which was about a Russian serial killer Chikotila maybe it was based on that yeah have you urge me over with him yeah I think I think that's actually what it's based on but anyway yeah like it's called child 44 I should not have read that book yeah like as a young you really like a young guy all that was but it's like you know you read goosebumps yeah you read fucking yeah somebody stole like a lamp yeah like like we got to get the movie squad yeah you don't read the fucking the guy killing the dozen people or two dozen or three dozen like Chikotila was so sadistic like yeah not that there's any serial killer it's like really a nice guy but like he would kill kids and like you're now you're now a kid reading I mean like why do my mom write this book yeah she'll write that yeah like yeah no that that stuff especially if you have like a strong imagination oh yeah so since since like my early years I'm not a big fan of our movies I just don't want to like dude I'm the same way especially just having a kid oh yeah I can't do any crime stuff involving any type of adolescence but then even if it's like a serial killer that killed just like dudes like just grown men yeah but then that guy the serial killer had a kid yeah then I feel bad again because I'm like oh man now this kid goes his whole life losing like I get way too way too caught up I know but yeah he was one of the most bizarre kind of strange killers I'd ever heard of but he goes out with his friend and his friend is like yeah like they're kind of walking through like the same wood in Batevski Park and he his friend is like yeah I'm gonna go in I'm not seeing anyone there's no lone people out here that we can get like I'm just gonna go in and Alexander goes okay and as his friend is walking away he kills his friend that was gonna say yeah that seemed like a man crazy and uh and to be and to be clear there are no openings named after him right I hope not I hope not dude I mean yeah I would just I would not play it ever even if it's like the right line for someone like as like a defensive opening I'm not playing the Russian serial killer Bavetski Park yeah maybe yeah Bavetski Park gambit you know not there are some cases like that I think where I had a case I mean I have like just weird anecdotes of stories but I once played at a chest tournament where one of the people who was winning it was had a name uh and his name was the exact same name of a murder I don't remember his name but I remember like was a Ted Bundy or something yeah like they had the exact same name it might have been the guy right now maybe it was like out of jail what yeah so yeah uh so that has happened I mean you played a lot of weirdos growing up you know you've got to would you ever play like uh like if someone did like a charity tournament at a prison so actually I was gonna comment on that chest and prison is a huge program it's probably a really good thing yeah like I think I love chest again for many reasons that we talked about but like I love that it teaches like discipline it teaches like controlling your emotions like someone does something you can't just like react emotion like oh I'm gonna get your queen like it teaches like a lot of like forethought and like kind of future planning so I think it would be good for people that have like impulse control or like you know even just like something to do you know it's big it's really big um no no no nothing I I can tell you definitely nothing has been named after him but um but going to play in a prison would be pretty crazy yeah yeah I guess it depends on the type of prison probably but I had this experience where I went to a prison with a friend of mine he was doing like a charity kind of show there yeah and I'm like talking all these guys that are in there for life yeah and they're telling me these stories and I was like well these are pretty crazy stories like the reason why they're in there and then I looked them up afterwards the story stories that they told me was like, not even 5% of it. I talked to a guy that was like a full on like, murder of his whole family. And we were just like talking in the yard. And he was like, yeah, you know, I got in here because yeah, I made some mistakes, I did it. Left it at that, looked up his name later, killed his wife, killed his kids, escaped, tried to go to Mexico. And then the feeling you get after talking with someone like this, you're like, holy. 'Cause like, I was shocked at how normally it was. Just like a regular guy. And you're like, what? So, next time you're at a chess tournament, mantra back. Yeah, I don't go to those mushrooms anymore, you know. No, it's good. And there's a lot of these crazy stories. I love the lore. Anything that we missed or anything you wanna tell the people before we've wrap up? No, this was fun. I'm glad I learned something today that's like actually, like the Crowley guy is a little bit like, yeah, I played some chess, yeah, whatever, but like the playing god and the medium and all these different, yeah, and this guy, this, the Russian guy. Crazy, this was fun. Yeah. Well, thank you so much for doing it. I am truly a massive fan. I'm extremely grateful that you took the time to be with me today and lend your chess knowledge. And I don't think you need any more promo as you have such a massive channel. But if anyone wants to check out Gotham chess, they can absolutely go check it out. Plenty of people don't know me, that's good. Well, if you're interested in chess and you're trying to get into it, I highly recommend these slow runs. Those are good. That's like, are like chess steps. Low elo is good. Awesome. Yes, the elo is great. I guess the elo is great. It's awesome. So truly, thank you so much for inspiring me to play chess and inspiring so many people to play chess. You're absolutely the man. You can check out your book, How to Win at chess next level and chess for babies. Chess for babies. There's a lot of stuff. We'll find out on Amazon or wherever. Amazing, yeah. Love you. God bless your brother. Let's talk soon. Thank you.