UNTOLD: Chess Mates

0:00Rebecca Lavoie:I'm Rebecca Lavoie and this is You Can't Make This Up.

0:14Rebecca Lavoie:You Can't Make This Up is the podcast where we uncover the true stories behind your favorite Netflix documentaries and films. On today's episode, we take a closer look at the Netflix documentary Untold Chessmates. He's created a monster. And while he's old, I'm going to be young, improving, and the best player in the world, he's going to have to watch it. And every fucking day of his life, he's going to have to realize that he did this to me. Today, we're talking to Grandmaster Hans Niemann. He was the teenage upstart, a brash competitor who brought the raucous sensibility of an online gamer to the stoic world of chess.

0:50Rebecca Lavoie:But after the underdog handily beat the top-ranked player in the world, rumors about Hans Niemann swirled, including speculation he'd cheated by receiving radio signals in anal beads. The scandal sizzled in the media and stunned the sport, and it forced Niemann to declare to the chess world that he didn't cheat this time. The Netflix sports documentary series Untold Chessmates looks back at the controversy surrounding one disruptive challenger to the Game of Kings. We hear from Neiman himself and examine the claims he employed more than just skill to upset the reigning world champion. It also features interviews with the chess luminaries who accused Neiman of cheating in the ultimate test of cerebral fitness.

1:31He's now one of the most recognizable, infamous people to ever play the game of chess. And in my opinion, he lost the person that he was along the way.

1:52Rebecca Lavoie:And I'm joined now by Grandmaster Hans Niemann. Welcome to You Can't Make This Up. Hello, Rebecca. Thank you for having me. So a lot has been written about you, and you haven't, I think, too often told your own story. Did you see this documentary as an opportunity to do that, to get your side of things out there? Definitely. There were a lot of moments where I, you know, there was so much attention and so much media coverage. There was also sort of legal things going on. So I wasn't as vocal or as vocal as I would have been. So it definitely felt like the best opportunity to sort of get my message out there and to tell my side of the story.

2:27And obviously, Netflix was the biggest platform. So it was hard to turn that down.

2:32Rebecca Lavoie:I want to go back a little bit. When did you start playing chess? And when did you realize that you could really compete at an elite level? The first time I came in contact with a chess board was when I was five. The chess pieces were Christmas themed, like Santa Claus was the king. And, you know, I mean, I presume some pieces were reindeer. The pawns probably were reindeer. Yeah, that was technically my first experience. But the real moment when I was seriously introduced to the game was when I was around eight years old and the school I attended, it was a mandatory Friday class. And that was sort of the start.

3:07And they had quite an active chess program at that school. I was actually living in the Netherlands at the time. I lived there for two years from 79. And that's where the immersion began. And when I moved back to the Bay Area, suburb near Berkeley, the Bay Area had a huge chess culture. And that's where sort of the real rise began.

3:29Rebecca Lavoie:I want to ask you about playing with those hustlers at Washington Square Park. First of all, what is that scene like? It's funny that I actually was just there yesterday. ESPN was doing a profile on me and they wanted to see my day in the life. So, of course, I naturally suggested to show them the, in my opinion, the mecca of chess aficionados in New York. And, well, there's Union Square and Washington Square Park, which often get mixed up, both within a 15 minute walking sort of range. You know, when I was younger, it was more, let's say, interesting from a competitive perspective. I learned a lot.

4:04This is the famous Washington Square Park. Okay, we're going to choose everything. Get up, get up. I want to get up. This is where the chess tables are. A lot of top players in New York come from this park. They have to beat this man like a dope. And they'll take your money any which way they can. To me, the best thing about it is that the passion they have for the game is so infectious that it reminds you of why you actually started playing chess. Because when you start competing at the highest level and stress gets involved and money and all these things, you can lose sight of your passion for the game and the joy.

4:37But when you see people who have spent their entire lives playing in the park, not earning particularly large amounts of money, simply doing it for the joy of the game, that can be a good reset if you're feeling overwhelmed with the stress of high-level competition.

4:53Rebecca Lavoie:Does that give you an edge, you think, playing in that environment? A competitive, as you know, but from a mindset perspective, you could say yes. You could say that I'm at this stage just not much competitively to learn, but from a mindset perspective and for when it comes to being appreciative of my opportunities and appreciative that I can play the game I love and make a living from it, certainly that's something I take away from my experiences there. So you're part of a generation, like my kids, who uses platforms like Twitch. They watch and stream real-life video games like League of Legends and Fortnite.

5:26Rebecca Lavoie:And there's a culture and an aesthetic on those channels that's very different from the culture of the chess world. Can you talk to me about bringing that style to this game when you were a teenager? Yeah, well, at the sort of beginning of COVID, I had all this time on my hands. I was still a junior in high school. So I began streaming and playing chess online. It was a fun thing to do. Interesting enough, although I am from this younger generation that's rising, a lot of my competitors aren't really into social media, aren't really into pop culture. I guess being a young American, I did finish high school, unlike most of my competitors.

6:02Most of them never really went to school. They were kind of homeschooled or in some other countries, there's more flexibility with attending school. I didn't really have that privilege to, I mean, you could say it's a privilege or a curse. I mean, education is very important. But for me, I guess I was far more brash and maybe, let's say, loud and passionate. And I had the typical American confidence or ego, depending on your interpretation. Rook E7, suck my balls. I had quite a big fan base. The rage is not for the camera. Unfortunately, it's just how I am. TikTok, tick, tick, tick! I think what set me apart from other streamers was everyone else was just so boring that I seem so interesting in contrast.

6:47How is he so smart? So I suppose that's how I stood out to others.

6:52Rebecca Lavoie:Do you think that Bobby Fischer would have a Twitch channel if he were around today? I would say that Bobby Fischer would be the biggest Twitter shit poster in the world right now. I'm thinking about, I did an interview about a NASCAR documentary a couple of years ago, and William Bryan became a NASCAR driver based almost exclusively on iRacing, which is like an online thing. Do you think we're now in a world where champions are going to be built on the internet? I wouldn't say that. I would say that online chess still lacks a lot of the things that over-the-board chess lacks. I would say that a lot of the training happens online because chess is such a global game and people are so far apart that it's just convenient to play online.

7:35But in terms of where the tournaments that have the most prestige is certainly in person. But I would say that a lot of the chess entertainment does happen online.

7:45Rebecca Lavoie:So watching this documentary, I kind of saw you as this big culture disruptor in chess. I'm thinking of someone like, I'm a little older than you, but growing up in the 90s, Andre Agassi on the tennis court or John Daly on the golf course. Very emotional, not buttoned up. It's funny, I just saw that clip of Agassi and how he knew Becker's serve because of his tongue movement. And I really, really love that clip. And Daly as well. I mean, I don't drink as much as him, but I've certainly had some drunken chess triumphs. Do you see yourself as a little bit of a culture disruptor in the game? In the chess world, I certainly, from a personality perspective, yes.

8:24I mean, the chess world, they always frame it as it's something that I'm putting on when I'm just being myself. So I think that the chess world struggles to comprehend the idea of personality. Um, because in most sports you see a diverse array of personalities and chess, they're far more, um, trying to impersonate what they think a gentlemanly chess player should be like rather than embracing their own personality.

8:50Rebecca Lavoie:Like putting on a radio voice to do radio, right? Cause that's what you've heard. Yeah. You could say that. I mean, some people have a work voice, you know, they have the, they're on a conference call and you hear them speak in their work voice or, and then you hang out with them in person and they have a normal voice. It's a natural, I suppose, mimetic human instinct. You know, I'm curious because when people say that there's this, you come in with this brashness and you're breaking this like stoic code of chess and they say it's disrespectful to the game. Do you understand where they're coming from at all?

9:19Rebecca Lavoie:Or do you just think it's time to move on from that? There have been some instances where some of it, let's say a bit over the top. Like what? No, I mean, everything should be considered in context and short clips, especially in the chess world. I mean, like, let's say when you see my reactions online, that's online. We're not, you know, that's like a whole different thing than doing something like that in person. So I think that everything should be considered in context. And that's not necessarily the case in short form or headline sort of content or news. The old school chess establishment, the view is that you'd be very proper.

9:55When you win, you say, OK, I won the game, you lose. OK, a guy played better than me.

9:59Rebecca Lavoie:My congratulations, sir. A brilliant coup. But Hans, he was very wild. When he lost games, he would scream, he'd yell. Also, when he would win some games, he'd be like, oh, wow, I'm the greatest in the world. I am a god. Now sit the fuck down and get with the flow. In general, I don't see why people should be so reserved. I think that chess players, chess organizers have become so complacent because they kind of have, it's like a game of hot potato of who's footing the bill. And chess has been such a commercial failure in comparison to other sports because you have incredibly wealthy benefactors who are so passionate about the game and are willing to finance something with no actual return.

10:42So since chess has such history and is a global game of significance, not just historically, but it is symbolic of many things, it is able to attract incredibly wealthy patrons who will burn money without any sight of caring. So that kind of creates an environment where chess organizers are not incentivized to find real commercial sponsorships. They're not really incentivized to push players to promote the tournament. And so you kind of have this cascading effect of where you're lacking incentives. And that's kind of prevented the game from growing into something that could be compared to the large commercially viable sports that you see dominate culture today.

11:25Rebecca Lavoie:Yeah. Do you think that the esports aspect of some of these tournaments might help? I mean, I didn't know these existed. These tournaments where elite players play each other in the same location, but through screens. Will that help or you think? Yeah, I think the Esports World Cup is a great initiative. They have all these different events. I was there last year. I think the Esports ecosystem, you know, with the teams and the franchises, they're following a similar model to like, you know, the NBA, NFL, MLB. There was a bit of an Esports bubble. You know, you saw a lot of companies be inflated by venture capital.

12:03And then kind of there was a bit of a dive recently. but still some companies maintain. And now you have obviously a lot of Saudi money going into it. So I do see that having potential, but there just needs to be way more tournaments. You know, one tournament a year, is it going to sustain the entire professional chess ecosystem? So I would say that esports is a huge potential, but I still firmly believe that if you're in person, you should be playing on a physical chessboard, not on a computer.

12:30Rebecca Lavoie:What's the difference there? Because I know that you were playing online in the pandemic and then you started attending every tournament you could. So can you talk about that difference between the over-the-board chess and the, you know, through-the-screen chess? Well, if you want, in my opinion, not everyone thinks this, but if you want to make it the sort of pinnacle of competition and you're bringing on those prize money, real chess is played on physical board. I mean, this is how it's been done since the, you know, for thousands of years. I understand from an organization's perspective that everything is online.

13:03so it should be on a computer, but that's the Esports World Cup, right? So that's their choice. And the viewership did well. It was a great tournament. I intend on participating this year, but I would hope that playing chess in person can be the future. Maybe online is what's going to be bigger, but I would really prefer as a competitor that it would be on the actual physical board.

13:25Rebecca Lavoie:Yeah. We see in other individual sports, there's this camaraderie sometimes among players. I mean, they stay in the same hotels. They sometimes share trainers. They work out in hotel gyms together. Is there any kind of camaraderie between grandmasters when they're not at the board? There certainly is. You have cliques mostly divided by country. I mean, a lot of people from different countries will hang out with each other. Some people with the same coaches will hang out with each other. I have a few friends that I sometimes hang out with during tournaments. Obviously, it depends on how serious the tournament is.

14:00If it's a Rapid or Bliss tournament, which are quicker games, you feel like I hang out much more, maybe explore wherever you are. But if it's a serious tournament, you're more focused on making sure you sleep well. At the elite level, there's certainly universal respect, camaraderie, because to be a top-level chess player, no one else can really understand your entire life and what you've gone through and what you've experienced. So there's probably 10, 15 people in the world that I could have a very stimulating conversation with about chess. Yeah. And the rest, you kind of feel you don't really feel any common ground.

14:32So you could call it camaraderie, you could call it friendship among some players. You could call it, you know, love, hate rivalry. I mean, there's different there's different labels you could put on it. But there's, I would say, most importantly, universal respect.

14:50Rebecca Lavoie:Magnus Carlsen is the number one ranked Grandmaster and at one point in the documentary the director asks him about you and says is he even at your level? And he says Of course not It felt like he was trying to sort of cosplay as a top test player to be honest What is your response to that? Well the thing that's ironic about that comment is that he says that I'm not at his level but then he accuses me of playing too well. So you kind of have to pick and choose. Are you saying that I'm too good to be true or are you saying that I'm not good enough? I mean, we played in the World Rapid Blitz Championship in the quarterfinals.

15:30I was leading the match. He narrowly, narrowly beat me. Our match was the closest of any of the matches on his path. I easily could have won that and eventually become world champion. Then in the World Rapid Championship just three months ago, So I was fourth in the world, tying for second, missing a bronze medal by a half typewriter point. So, you know, the results kind of speak for themselves and the results have been achieved in spite of every obstacle that they've put in front of me. So to sort of say that we're not, I mean, in our match in Paris, he beat me 17 and a half, 12 and a half. He beat the number two player in the world by double the margin.

16:05So for me to sort of only lose by that margin, losing by the smallest margin of any other play in the world at the age of 20, in spite of every single sort of thing I've experienced, having two years of Roderick's career, I mean, the results sort of tell a very different story.

16:20Rebecca Lavoie:Well, you kind of reflected that in this viral quote you gave in 2022 when you had this famous upset of Carlson. Hans, yesterday was a terrible day for you. And today you start out with a masterpiece. How would you summarize it? Just speaks for itself. I was watching that quote and I was wondering, I wasn't sure you were just going for a mic drop moment there. You sort of had some emotion going on behind that. Can you talk about that moment and making that statement? Funnily enough, most people thought that that was pre-rehearsed. I actually came up with it on the spot. I don't know how I had such a creative moment.

16:53It's such a unique point in my life. But I mean, the chess speaks for itself. They say that I'm the one trash talking, but they kind of always give me these questions that are preparing, they're kind of leading me on. But I just thought the chess spoke for itself. The chess went well and that's the most important thing.

17:07Rebecca Lavoie:Yeah. There was a famous matchup between you and Carlson at the 2022 Sinkfield Cup. He used an obscure opening, I think. I don't know as much about chess as you do, obviously. The Nimzo Indian defense. And you said that of all the variations, thousands of them, you would happen to have studied that just beforehand. So what did you think when you saw him play that? Yeah, so this is one thing in the documentary that, I mean, Eric and Danny were discussing, which they have no expertise to even be a panning on something like this. For context, Danny Wrench is an international master, which is far from being a top player.

17:41And Eric is a amateur level player who has no business even opening his mouth about like Grandmaster level chess. We don't have time to name the thousands of possible variations of chess. And so to say that he had looked at one out of 10 ,000 and been like, yeah, I'm going to focus on this for a minute before my match, like, it just didn't make any sense to anybody at all. But is it possible? Sure. Yes. I mean, one in 10 ,000 chance. Anomalies happen. With regards to that variation, first of all, I mean, the Nimzo Indian is very common. He played a sideline of the Nimzo Indian with a move for G3.

18:19Now, in chess, there's this thing called the transpositions. where you can reach the same eventual position, but three different order. So after 10 moves, you can reach the same position, but the sequence doesn't have to be the same. So at that point, he was playing the Catalan opening, which also envoves G3, where you fianchetto the bishop and you castle kingside. And my variation against the Catalan had a transposition to the same Nimzodian line. And transpositions are very common in chess in many opening lines. And essentially I had What I expected the most was the Catalan. And I had checked with my coach.

18:57Usually he goes for sidelines and weird things because he wants to surprise you. So I had paid special attention to those exact types of variations. And the reason why I had not explained why I knew the variation was in chess, it's very important to surprise your opponent. So if I had gone to the interview and said, I knew this line because of a transmission, every single one of my opponents would then know what my variation would be. And then they could predict what I wanted to play. and then sort of prepare some deep line where I would have to, you know, where I could get caught in the opening and get a worse position.