Episode 10: The History

[00:00:00.47] [Rooked theme music plays]
[00:00:05.64] [Brin-Jonathan-Butler] It's not an accident that chess has been one of the most durable things humanity has created in the last 1,500 years. Think of all the precious, cherished things people have lost in that time along the way to the present. Languages, religions, civilizations, entire bloodlines, endless artifacts and countless stories cast into a common darkness. How did something so seemingly trivial as chess prove so much more durable and immune to the friction and chaos of history? Any child can learn the basics in minutes, yet no human mind will ever be capable of solving it any more than an abacus has a prayer of measuring a black hole.
[00:00:46.25] [Music fades]
[00:00:46.69] [Jess] That was Brin-Jonathan Butler reading from his book The Grandmaster: Magnus Carlsen and the Match that Made Chess Great Again.
[00:00:53.45] [Playful music plays]
[00:00:54.40] [Ryan] Here we are with a new episode of Rooked on a Tuesday. Any Tuesday of the month is what we promised you from the very beginning. And that's when all of our other episodes have come out-- sometime on a Tuesday.
[00:01:09.59] [Jess] Yeah, we said from the very start that we would always and forever promptly episodes on one of the Tuesdays. There's never been a set Tuesday.
[00:01:20.15] [Ryan] It definitely has not been the first Tuesday. Gaslight, gatekeep, girlboss.
[00:01:25.69] [Jess] Do you know what that means?
[00:01:26.84] [Ryan] I have no idea what that means.
[00:01:28.49] [Jess] Anyway, we're going to keep putting out an episode on one of the Tuesdays in August and then again in September. It's been a long year. Sorry.
[00:01:39.02] [Rooked theme music plays]
[00:01:40.47] Last episode, we took a deep dive into the incredibly fine details of the Hans Niemann lawsuit. And like we said, that's kind of the end of the Hans-Magnus drama, at least as far as we know at this moment.
[00:01:52.78] [Ryan] For the people who are still hanging in there to hear more about Hans and Magnus, we do have some updates that we'll share in the final episodes. None of them are Earth shattering, and none of them involve anal beads, but we'll let you know where they're both at in their careers. Rest assured, Hans is still saying Hansian things and stirring the pot. And Magnus? Well, he's still Magnus, the GOAT of chess.
[00:02:17.98] [Goat bleating]
[00:02:19.20] [Jess] What we're really going to focus on in this episode and the next is arguably the third character that's been present in this whole series-- that equally beautiful and devastating game known as chess.
[00:02:32.91] [Ryan] Because this is a tale about knowing where you came from to see where you're going.
[00:02:39.30] [Jess] This is a tale of cheating, of lies and conspiracies.
[00:02:46.16] [Ryan] This is a tale of the game of chess and the potential collapse of its future.
[00:02:52.83] [both] This is Rooked: The Cheaters' Gambit.
[00:02:59.59] [music fades]
[00:03:00.54] [Gloomy music plays]
[00:03:04.84] [Jess] I'm Jess Schmidt. I'm a seasoned podcaster who is still very bad at chess, but has accidentally become very enchanted by it.
[00:03:13.12] [Ryan] I'm Ryan Webb. I'm a first-time podcaster, and I've only mentioned this in a bonus episode, so not everyone got to hear it, but I've beaten FIDE Master Sunil Weeramantry, aka Hikaru's stepdad-- the man who taught the second-best player in the world how to play chess-- a total of six times.
[00:03:35.32] [Jess] Mmm, how many times has he beaten you?
[00:03:36.97] [Ryan] I really don't think thats that important.
[00:03:39.28] [Jess laughs]
[00:03:40.30] [Ryan] Here's every game I've won against Sunil. September 8th, 2023, February 20th, 2024, February 29, March 2nd, June 18, and June 27.
[00:03:53.77] [Jess] What time format was that?
[00:03:55.24] [Ryan] That was bullet.
[00:03:56.47] [Jess] All of them were bullet?
[00:03:57.80] [Ryan] All of them were bullet, yeah.
[00:03:59.06] [Jess] So 60-second games?
[00:04:00.27] [Ryan, chuckling] Yeah.
[00:04:01.84] [Jess] That doesn't seem as impressive.
[00:04:03.87] [Ryan] Oh, yeah, it's definitely just meaningless.
[00:04:06.78] [Jess] Okay, cool. Should we go back to the episode, then?
[00:04:09.29] [Ryan] Yeah, we can-- we can go back. As long as everyone has had enough time to digest how impressive I am. I'm coming for you, Hikaru.
[00:04:18.28] [Thunderclap]
[00:04:24.13] [Upbeat music plays]
[00:04:24.63] [Jess] Okay, so I guess I'll be the one to get us back on track, then. We've spent a lot of this series talking about the scandal, and anal beads, and specific players at the centre of it all, but we haven't actually done any episodes on chess, per se.
[00:04:39.68] [Ryan] Right, and one of the things we say every episode is that this is a show about the game of chess and the potential collapse of its future. And we're still going to talk about that and try to find an answer.
[00:04:51.46] [Jess] But it might be easier to uncover where the future of chess is heading by looking back to where it came from.
[00:04:59.28] [Ryan] Who birthed chess? Who is chess's mommy, or perhaps chess's mommies?
[00:05:07.48] [Jess] What kind of legacy has chess shaped and been shaped by? Where does FIDE come into all of this, and why won't we shut up about them?
[00:05:16.39] [Ryan] And why has chess been able to persist when so many other great games, languages, civilizations, and cultures before and after it have been lost to the relentless march of time?
[00:05:28.13] [Jess] So without further ado, Rooked brings to you a brief history of chess. But it's not going to be a comprehensive history. You could just read a book if that's what you're looking for. In fact, we highly recommend The Immortal Game: a History of Chess, or How 32 Carved Pieces on a Board Illuminated Our Understanding of War, Art, Science, and the Human Brain by David Shenk.
[00:05:50.49] [Playful music plays]
[00:05:50.89] [Ryan] That's a really clever title, by the way, because the Immortal Game refers to both how long lasting chess is as a sport, and to one of the most famous games of chess ever played-- a practise match that took place in 1851 between Adolf Anderssen and Lionel Kieseritzky. The Immortal Game is the perfect example of what's known as the Romantic school of chess, in which players sacrifice a bunch of material in order to gain a positional advantage.
[00:06:20.30] [Jess] What does that mean for non-chess players? Basically, Anderssen gave up both of his rooks, a bishop, and his queen in order to checkmate Kieseritzky's king. Despite having a significant advantage in material-- 13 black pieces to Anderssen's eight white-- and Kieseritzky having lost just three pawns, Anderssen still wins.
[00:06:42.90] [Gloomy music plays]
[00:06:43.27] [Ryan] The Immortal Game is an excellent example of attacking in chess, and it's still taught to this day as an important theoretical concept. Modern computers can easily find refutations or technically incorrect moves in Anderssen's gameplay. But humans are not computers. Many of the top-level GMs of the last century also have an Immortal Game of their own, taking on the same terminology from when it was first seen in Ernst Falkbeer's analysis of the original Immortal Game between Anderssen and Kieseritzky in 1855.
[00:07:19.50] [Sinister synth music plays]
[00:07:20.48] [Jess] Magnus has an Immortal. Kasparov has an Immortal. Polgar has an Immortal. Hikaru, too. All of them are games in which many pieces are sacrificed in order to weave a mating net, the players brute forcing their way into the king's palace in order to take his head.
[00:07:38.24] [Music loudens, then fades]
[00:07:40.58] [Mellow electronic music plays]
[00:07:41.05] Most of this next bit of the episode is actually structured on the narrative in history that David Shenk lays out in The Immortal Game. We probably should have just seen if he'd give us an interview, but it's too late now. So instead what you're going to get is a history of chess, according to what we think is interesting.
[00:07:57.83] [Ryan] And I'm a middle-aged white man, so it's actually my kind who's mostly been writing this history for pretty well time immemorial. So I'm qualified to say what the best parts of it are.
[00:08:09.91] [Jess] And I'm a woman. And you know what they say-- behind every great man. Getting to read half a script about the history of chess is a woman who did all of the research and wrote that script.
[00:08:21.87] [Ryan] You didn't write the whole thing. I wrote this part saying you didn't write the whole thing. That was my contribution.
[00:08:27.84] [Jess] You got me there. Kay, you can have the first line of my script, and then you can announce when the part I wrote is done. Deal?
[00:08:35.99] [Ryan] Yeah deal.
[00:08:41.44] Firstly, what is chess? I said it once before, and I'll say it again. Chess is a game with 32 pieces on a board with 64 squares, white versus black. Each different piece has a specific type of movement assigned to it. It's fairly simple from the outset.
[00:09:01.45] [Jess] But there are nearly an infinite amount of possibilities in every game of chess. Just to put this into perspective, here's a quote from David Shenk's The Immortal Game. Quote, "Every variation is critically distinct. The dynamics of the game depend entirely on the exact position of the pieces. Just as an infinitesimal change in the interactions of H2O molecules will change their structure from water to ice, the movement of any pawn just 1 square forward can drastically alter the course of a hard-fought chess game," end quote.
[00:09:35.69] [Ryan] And here's another one. Quote, "The total number of unique chess games is not literally an infinite number, but in practical terms, the difference is indistinguishable. It is truly beyond comprehension, 'barely thinkable,' as one expert puts it, and beyond human or machine capacity to play through them all. The estimated total in scientific notation is 10 to the power of 120," end quote.
[00:10:03.24] [Electronic music plays]
[00:10:03.67] [Jess] That's a one with 120 zeros after it. Feel free to go away and come back if you already know what that sounds like. But if you don't, here we go. 1000000000000000000-- Okay, this is taking too long. Let's speed this up.
[00:10:25.81] [Sped-up voice] 0000000000000000 0000000000000000 0000000000000000 0000000000000000 0000000000000000000000
[00:10:49.54] That's 1,000 trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion games.
[00:10:56.95] [Ryan] I am not convinced 0 is a word anymore.
[00:10:59.01] [Laughter]
[00:10:59.74] [Jess] It doesn't sound like one.
[00:11:01.01] [Ryan] I'm pretty sure you added, like, four extra zeros, too.
[00:11:02.93] [Jess] No, that's the right amount of zeros.
[00:11:04.07] [Ryan] You might have to go-- I think you have to go back and read that.
[00:11:06.23] [Jess] That's the right. amount of zeros.
[00:11:07.48] [Ryan] We want to be accurate with this podcast.
[00:11:08.71] [Jess] Okay.
[00:11:10.99] [Ryan] Here's The Immortal Game again. Quote, "By way of comparison, the total number of electrons in the universe is, as best as physicists can determine, 10 to the power of 79," end quote.
[00:11:24.57] [Electronic music plays]
[00:11:24.86] That means that a chessboard contains the possibility of more game variations than there are electrons in the universe.
[00:11:34.58] [Jess] We opened this episode with Brin-Jonathan Butler reading an excerpt from his book, The Grandmaster: Magnus Carlsen and the Match that Made Chess Great Again. He, too, marvels at the incomprehensible immensity of chess. And I think that's one of the things that's given the sport such longevity.
[00:11:53.57] [Music fades]
[00:11:53.98] [Ryan] I think we need to take a moment here to really try and grasp the concept of infinity.
[00:12:00.33] [Ethereal music plays]
[00:12:00.58] Because we say these words and everyone has a general sense of what it means, but if we use infinity in other contexts, we can get more of a sense of how bizarre and almost otherworldly the concept of infinity seems. For example, if you take an apple and seal it in a box, over thousands and thousands of years, it will decompose inside the box, becoming energy. Over an infinite period of time, the neutrons will break down and become smaller particles that eventually decay, burn, and fuse, existing in all possible states, because infinity means the potentiality of all. The apple will thus have to repeat states as it moves through infinity, meaning that it will become the same apple it was when we first placed it into the box. And not only that, but it will happen an infinite number of times over the course of infinity, because it does not end. Anyway, that's about how many potential variations there can be in chess.
[00:13:10.54] [Mellow electronic music plays]
[00:13:10.93] Thanks for attending my Ted Talk.
[00:13:13.66] [Jess] Okay, so that's the immensity of the possibilities contained in a chessboard covered. Now back to the Immortal Game of chess, according to David Shenk's The Immortal Game. Quote, "Chess is a game that could not be contained by religious edict, nor ocean, nor war, nor language barrier. Not even the merciless accumulation of time, which eventually washes over and dissolves most everything, could much as tug lightly at chess's ferocious momentum. It has, for numberless ages, wrote Benjamin Franklin in 1786, been the amusement of all the civilized nations of Asia, the Persians, the Indians, and the Chinese. Europe has had it above 1,000 years. The Spaniards have spread it over their part of America, and it begins lately to make its appearances in these states," end quote. Here's Brin again.
[00:14:05.23] [Brin-Jonathan-Butler] I also did a piece about chess sort of indirectly for an airline magazine that is now defunct. It was Southwest Airlines had, like, an in-flight magazine. And so, I did a book about the history of chess in Cuba, where chess is extremely popular, and was actually brought over as a byproduct of colonialism, because Columbus, all the people on his three boats were bored, and there was a lot of chess that was being played. And so, it's interesting that chess remains after Spain's hold on Cuba has been relinquished.
[00:14:43.14] [Ryan] Here's another excerpt by Shenk. Quote, "The game would eventually pass into every city in the world and along more than 1,500 years of continuous history. A common thread of pawn chains, knight forks, and humiliating checkmates that would run through the lives of Karl Marx, Pope Leo XIII, Arnold Schwarzenegger. King Edward I, George Bernard Shaw, Abraham , Lincoln, Ivan the Terrible. Voltaire, King Montezuma, Rabbi Ibn Ezra, William the Conqueror, Jorge Luis Borges, Willie Nelson, Napoleon, Samuel Beckett, Woody Allen, Norman Schwartzkopf--" Ryan Webb.
[00:15:27.51] [Jess] It's a quote. Can you just do the quote, please?
[00:15:30.06] [Ryan] "--Woody Allen, and Norman Schwarzkopf," end quote.
[00:15:33.72] [Mellow electronic music plays]
[00:15:34.04] [Jess] We don't know for sure where chess comes from, but we know that there's many, many origin stories about who supposedly invented it. In ancient India, there's a story about a queen whose only son and heir to her throne is assassinated, so a philosopher of the court is asked how to gently break the news to her. The story goes that his answer was to construct the first chess board and play the first ever game of bloodless war known as chess with the queen in the audience. In the wake of the checkmate, she understood that her son was dead.
[00:16:07.56] [Ryan] Here's how Shenk puts it in The Immortal Game. Quote, "Over and over, chess was said to have been invented to explain the unexplainable, to make visible the purely abstract, to see simple truths in complex worlds," end quote.
[00:16:23.54] [Jess] The mathematician Pythagoras invented it to teach abstract mathematical concepts. Palamedes, the Greek warrior, invented it to plot out battle positions. Moses invented it to teach about the stars and planets in the sky, and the alphabet. Xerxes invented it in 6th Century BC Babylon to teach the cruel King Merodach to be a good ruler. If you believe all these stories, chess has been invented and reinvented hundreds of times over, across centuries and all around the world.
[00:16:53.69] [Ryan] The oldest myths trace back to India, where a King named Balhait commissioned a game that would showcase man's free will and intelligence.
[00:17:01.74] [Jess] But here's what the real version most likely is, in the words of Shenk. Quote, "The game, in reality, was not invented all at once in a fit of inspiration by a single king, general, philosopher, or court wizard. Rather, it was almost certainly, like the Bible and the internet, the result of years of tinkering by a large, decentralized group, a slow achievement of collective intelligence," end quote.
[00:17:27.05] [Mellow electronic music plays]
[00:17:27.35] [Ryan] The first iteration of what we know as modern chess was seen in Persia in the 5th or 6th century, as a game called Chatrang, with 16 red and 16 emerald pieces on a 64-square board. A king, a minister-- modernly known as a queen-- two elephants, now bishops, two horses, two chariots, called rukhs in Persian, and eight soldiers. The mission-- get the king. The game was a bit slower than what we're used to in contemporary chess. But this structure is the same as what we now know.
[00:18:03.02] [Jess] This game likely arrived in some variation from India, perhaps as the game known as Chaturanga, which had earlier come to India from China. We have the Silk Road to thank for this-- the information highway of that time period.
[00:18:16.82] [Ryan] Chess is older than chalkboards, the printing press, the compass, and the telescope. Here's Brin again.
[00:18:26.10] [Brin-Jonathan-Butler] I'm amazed that after 1,500 years, this is a game that was invented the same century as toilet paper, and there are as many people playing it as there are domestic cats in the world, and it hasn't stopped revealing mysteries about who we are, and creating great characters, like Magnus.
[00:18:46.75] [Ryan] Unlike dice games, chess is not a game of chance. It's a game of pure skill. You can't really win through luck. You win by being a better player, by knowing the game better, and by being able to see and calculate the best move on the board more accurately than your opponent.
[00:19:04.64] [Jess] Chess and the religion Islam were born about the same time, and when the two were brought together in Persia, it became part of Muslim culture as the game Shatranj. In the ninth century, the Islamic world top players were known as the Aliyat, the Grandmasters. There were only five, and each would succeed each other as the strongest player.
[00:19:24.13] [Ryan] In the Middle Ages, chess migrated from Persia and India to the West, and the pieces became European Christian figures thanks to the geographic spread of Islam and chess to-- in Shenk's words, quote, "Palestine, Syria, Iraq, Egypt, Nubia, Libya, Morocco, Cyprus, Sicily, parts of Spain, Portugal, Turkey, Afghanistan, India, and China. The game may have enjoyed its European debut in 822," end quote.
[00:19:54.16] [Electronic music plays]
[00:19:54.48] [Jess] Chess became so popular in medieval culture that it was one of the seven skills that knights were expected to train in, along with riding, swimming, archery, boxing, verse writing, and hawking.
[00:20:06.24] [Haliey Welch] You gotta give him that hawk tuah and spit on that thing! You get me?
[00:20:10.44] [Laughing]
[00:20:11.18] [Jess] As humanity progressed onwards, chess progressed with it, all the while representing how dichotomies can exist within the whole. Chess is simple yet complex, individual, yet communal, metaphorical and literal. Chess would come to shape and represent changes in concepts like morality and love-- concepts that we still see represented through chess in modern media today. Looking at you, Queen's Gambit.
[00:20:38.57] [Ryan] The rules of chess differed across countries and cultures, and would not be consolidated until the 15th and 16th centuries. These eras were ruled by Queens like Catherine of Aragon, Isabella of Castile, Mary Tudor, Elizabeth I, Catherine de Medici, Jeanne d'Albret of Navarre, and Mary Queen of Scots. Universal pawn and bishop movements became set rules for the game, and the piece previously known as a minister was rebranded as the modern queen.
[00:21:10.62] [Jess] Here's another excerpt from The Immortal Game. Quote, "Such was the dynamic, symbiotic relationship between chess and its adopted continent, Europe. Games and society reflected and influenced one another, like a painted portrait and its subject. The new faster, more intellectually challenging chess echoes not just the rise of female power, but also a culture in transformation," end quote. This time period is known as the European renaissance, and it was the birthplace of modern chess.
[00:21:41.49] [Ryan] By the 1700s, chess was finally gaining popularity outside of aristocracy. Here's Shenk again. Quote, "First, the interaction of the actual pieces offered a sophisticated comment on social stratification and the true nature of power. While at first the different pieces appeared to be severely unequal, any seasoned player knew that each has strengths to be reckoned with. Pawns, particularly working together, could hold their own and even sometimes dominate a region of the board. The lesson from this was that each member of a society has particular virtues, regardless of social rank. Second, as a game won or lost purely on skill, chess offered as level a playing field as one could find in society. Indeed, it was the epitome of meritocracy, an arena where advancement was procured solely on the basis of skill," end quote.
[00:22:37.16] [Jess] The ebb and flow of Europe's Industrial Revolution in the 1800s saw chess popularity shrink as nonexistent labour laws ate away at workers' leisure time, and then saw it rise again as caps and regulations were added to factory work. Chess was finally able to make the jump from an aristocratic game to one that the middle class also had the time and resources to enjoy. There were no time controls in this period. Chess was a game of stamina, a willingness to endure discomfort physically and mentally.
[00:23:07.71] [Ryan] The International chess community was also better able to interact during this time due to the cheapening of travel and long-distance communication. This culminated in 1851, when the first international tournament was held in London. This is also the site of the original Immortal Game between Adolf Anderssen and Lionel Kieseritzky, though that was just a practise match, not a regulation game.
[00:23:32.23] [Jess] We've already mentioned the importance of immortal games. David Shenk's explanation in The Immortal Game of why it's important to look at chess throughout time is more eloquent than anything we could ever write. So here it is. Quote, "Games from different eras fit together like links in a chain. Studying a sequence of them in content, we can understand not only the collective knowledge of chess, but also how that knowledge coalesced over time. It's the same reason we study the history of anything. Any knowledge is an accumulation of experience," end quote.
[00:24:06.02] [Piano music plays]
[00:24:06.31] [Ryan] Chess requires you to learn from past mistakes, to pull from a foundation of knowledge that considers the vast amount of choices available and narrows in on which is the most favourable. Here's Brin.
[00:24:19.54] [Brin-Jonathan-Butler] Why chess is so tricky is because it's been used by so many people as an avatar of so many things, or a metaphor of so many things. I mean, evolutionarily speaking, how do we demonstrate intelligence? You know, is it our strategy in the world, our survival strategy, our coping mechanisms, how we deal with stress? Chess seems to encompass so many different things that we value that-- you know, Wall Street wants to use chess. We're not playing checkers. We're playing chess. You hear the same thing in boxing or sports or in so many different walks of life.
[00:24:55.99] So chess becomes very appealing the way it's been used politically, historically. In terms of the Cold War, why was chess singled out as something important to do with the Cold War? Because it was important for the American system to demonstrate that we could produce better minds than the Soviet Union. In the same way that Cuba would use America's favourite two sports, boxing and baseball, and beat them at it at every Olympic competition or world competition, despite it being a country that's a fraction of the population, with a fraction of its resources. Castro was trying to use sports as a proxy for that his system was better, and could produce better people, and that the fuel for them being better was their principles and their values, as opposed to the American system, which was money. That's the way he was framing it. So I think it's extremely attractive in that way for people to use.
[00:25:55.67] But, I mean, I think another thing that's really of value with chess is it can kind of be anything to anybody, anything you want it to be. It's extraordinarily pliable as a metaphor. But, I mean, it's-- it's war. Just like the Olympics were set up to avoid war-- let's have competition-- chess is set up in a similar way where it has universally been respected around the world as a way of demonstrating supremacy and dominance over your opponent. So in that way, we're a very warlike species. So civilizations that have been technologically inferior have not been dealt with particularly compassionately in the historical record. And so, I think that's where chess is attractive, is it's an empirical way to demonstrate dominance. You know who wins at the end of the game, unless there's a draw. But if there's victory, that's kind of the end to it, and there's not that much ambiguity to it. And that is extremely appealing for people in a world that is very fuzzy, and ambiguous, and nebulous in other ways that we're trying to make sense of.
[00:27:03.48] [Gloomy music plays]
[00:27:04.43] [Jess] From its very origins, chess has been a game of divisiveness. It's a war of two sides battling each other in a test of will, strategy, and intelligence. It's represented and been a part of wars between cultures, genders, ages and classes. Now, the newest frontier for chess seems to be the schism between OTB and digital, but we're going to get to that next episode. Before that, you need to understand that the legacy of chess spread and thrived on colonialism, industrialization, and capitalism.
[00:27:42.21] [Ryan] Which brings us up to the beginning of the modern era of chess, spanning the last century and a half, give or take, and also to the end of your script, Jess. Just so everyone knows. I wrote this next part. And I did almost all my research on Reddit. Thanks, Reddit.
[00:28:00.51] We already hinted at it in reference to the setting of the original Immortal Game, but with the increased capacity for global connection, the next big move for chess would be consolidating not just the rules, but also the first ever international governing body. We've talked about them in nearly every episode, so say it with us, listeners.
[00:28:21.17] [both] FIDE.
[00:28:24.03] [Jess] Here's FIDE's origin story in their own words from their website. Quote, "Initially founded in 1924 in Paris under the motto Gens una sumus, Latin for we are one family, it was one of the very first international sports federations, alongside the governing bodies of the sports of football, cricket, swimming, and auto racing," end quote.
[00:28:46.91] At first, FIDE was meant as a players union. The one family was a collective of chess, best and brightest, but we knew there had to be more to that story. So here's returning guest chess historian Emilia Castelao to flesh that out a bit.
[00:29:02.37] [Comedic slide whistle plays]
[00:29:04.55] [Cheerful music plays]
[00:29:05.42] [Emilia Castelao] This podcast is listened to by Emilia, the Women in Chess Foundation President. The Women in Chess Foundation's mission essentially is to empower women and also make chess safer for everyone. We are working right now on two big projects. The first one is advocacy training. So we are training people in the chess world, from arbiters to moms of kids who play chess, on how to help women or anyone who has experienced misconduct in the chess world. As well, we have been working with a bunch of chess federations on changing safe play guidelines, and making them not only more inclusive, but also just more preventative, and having actual things in place for people who want to report misconduct.
[00:29:54.63] You can support us by going to our website, womeninchess.com, and becoming an advocate. We have advocacy trainings at least once a month. If advocacy training is not your style, then donating to the Women in Chess Foundation is always really great. All of the proceeds that we get go directly back into Women in Chess in helping put advocates at tournaments or supporting, you know, upcoming young girls in chess. We have a lot of lofty goals that we're trying to accomplish, so any penny helps.
[00:30:28.72] Anyone should become an advocate. We really want there to be a wide range of people who are advocates, whether it's, you know, moms taking their kids to chess tournaments, or if you're just a local club player who goes to, you know, weekly chess meetings.
[00:30:47.72] Advocacy is for everyone. There's really space for everyone in our advocacy program. And even if you're a man, we welcome you. You know, it's really important to have a full spectrum of representation in our advocates program.
[00:31:02.06] Follow Women in Chess at Women in Chess on Twitter and Instagram.
[00:31:07.40] [Comedic slide whistle plays]
[00:31:10.69] [Jess] Emilia also used to be a historian for FIDE. Here's what she had to say when we asked her about its origins.
[00:31:17.81] [Emilia Castelao] That is my expertise. FIDE is the international governing body of chess. They set the standard for how chess is played, and they also manage the Elo rating system, which determines player titles. So, like, Grandmaster, International Master, Women's Grandmaster.
[00:31:33.89] They started in 1924 in Paris when this guy named Pierre Vincent put forward the idea of starting an international chess federation. This wasn't the first time that someone had suggested it. It was suggested in 1914 in Saint Petersburg. But given, you know, World War I and everything, they were like, maybe we should put that on hold for a little bit.
[00:31:57.65] The start of FIDE really came because the French Chess Federation had a lot of power, and influence, and money to start an international chess federation. So in 1924, when they decided to start one, essentially, it was because kind of all the cards had come together to be able to fund it. And a lot of it, too-- and I'm doing a bit more, like, research and analysis on this right now-- but I think a lot of it, too, came because in 1921, when Capablanca and Emanuel Lasker were organizing the World Chess Championship, there was a lot of issues because there was no, like, rules on how someone became World Chess Champion. So, actually, during this time, as well, Capablanca was one of the first people to set a standard for how the World Chess Championship title worked, and he got together with a bunch of other players. So that kind of in conjunction with, like, a general need for having one body to govern the way chess is played is how FIDE came about.
[00:33:11.51] [Melodic saxophone music plays]
[00:33:12.62] [Jess] And so FIDE is born. But how did it grow from a consortium of players who shared the aspiration of standardizing the game worldwide into the bloated bureaucratic entity that we've been shit talking this whole series? Three words: the Soviet chess machine.
[00:33:30.81] [Music ends abruptly]
[00:33:31.19] [Ryan] That's four words.
[00:33:33.14] [Jess] I mean, I wouldn't count "the". It's a determinant.
[00:33:36.66] [Ryan] It's still a word. You should count it.
[00:33:38.55] [Melodic saxophone music plays]
[00:33:38.75] And you forgot the most important part. It should be six words: the Soviet chess machine and aliens.
[00:33:48.65] [Jess] I mean, that's kind of a mouthful, but go ahead. I know you love aliens.
[00:33:52.53] [E.T] E.T. phone home!
[00:33:55.46] [Laughing]
[00:33:56.42] [Ryan] In our episode on sportsmanship, we briefly hinted at a story regarding an ex-FIDE president being abducted by aliens. As promised, like, almost a year ago now, we're finally going to talk about how that all went down.
[00:34:11.49] [Jess] We're talking here of none other than Kirsan... Ilyumzhinov? Ilyumzhinov?
[00:34:18.54] [Ryan] Ilyumzhinov?
[00:34:19.40] [Jess] Ilyumzhinov.
[00:34:20.86] [Ryan] Alien-- Ilyumzhinov?
[00:34:23.90] [Jess] I'm just going to call him Kirsan. He was FIDE President from November 1995 to October 2018, and his story is wild. So buckle into your spaceship, because Rooked is going interstellar.
[00:34:37.54] [Intergalacic shooting, echoing]
[00:34:42.07] Actually, you can probably unbuckle for a little bit here because we have to do some more explaining before we get to the aliens part.
[00:34:48.39] [Sombre electronic music plays]
[00:34:48.80] [Ryan] First, we have to tell you just exactly who Kirsan is and why he matters. Well, to be fair, he actually doesn't matter a whole lot, and neither do you or I. But we're not here to discuss existential nihilism. We just need to know how Kirsan fits into this narrative about FIDE, and aliens, and the Soviet Union, and modern chess.
[00:35:14.72] [Jess] We've talked about Soviet chess a little bit in reference to Bobby Fischer in a bonus episode that we released a couple of months ago on our Patreon. You don't have to subscribe to our Patreon to understand this part of the story, but we do talk about astronaut yogourt in the Bobby bonus. So if you're into that, maybe consider supporting us.
[00:35:33.86] [Ryan] I'm imagining a Venn diagram of chess players and yogourt eaters.
[00:35:38.08] [Jess] And in the middle is the Rooked Patreon.
[00:35:40.32] [Comical slide whistle plays]
[00:35:43.00] [Cheerful music plays]
[00:35:43.47] [Ryan] Did you know that Rooked: The Cheaters' Gambit is an indie podcast?
[00:35:47.62] [Jess] Indie as in independent. We don't receive any sponsorship support. Ryan and I make Rooked in our spare time for free.
[00:35:55.06] [Ryan] And don't get us wrong-- we love getting to make this podcast exactly the way we want to, but we've been thinking that maybe with some support, we could make this show even better.
[00:36:04.80] [Tim Robinson] I got to figure out how to make money on this thing. It's simply too good.
[00:36:08.95] [Jess] So, like many creators, we've joined Patreon.
[00:36:12.30] [Ryan] Can I just ask, what is Patreon?
[00:36:14.94] [Jess] Great question, Ryan. Patreon is a way for fans to join and engage with their favourite creators' community. Basically, it's a platform that allows you to support creators financially. Currently, we have two tiers open: the Pawn level, If you want to support us for 5 Canadian dollars a month-- cheaper than mailing us an envelope of loonies and toonies-- and the King level, for $20 per month. If you choose to support us at the King tier, we'll also mention you by name in the episode credits. And if you support us at any level on Patreon, you'll also be able to access bonus content.
[00:36:48.52] [Ryan] Patreon looks like they stole their logo directly from Target.
[00:36:52.11] [Jess] You are the only person I've ever had to describe Patreon to, so I don't really trust your judgement here, honestly.
[00:36:59.16] But that's a good point. If you want to support us but monthly donations don't fit your budget, you can also buy us a coffee instead at buymeacoffee.com/rooked. Or we also really appreciate ratings, reviews, and shares, too. And those are free.
[00:37:13.99] [Ryan] We love making this podcast, and our motivation is listeners like you, so we really appreciate your support at any level.
[00:37:21.97] [Jess] Go to patreon.com/rooked to support the podcast. That's patreon.com/rooked. Thanks for listening.
[00:37:32.16] [Comiscal slide whistle plays]
[00:37:35.15] [Jess] Okay, back to the Soviet chess machine.
[00:37:37.00] [Ethereal music plays]
[00:37:38.09] [Ryan] Emilia already talked about how World War I kind of derailed the establishment of an international chess body. This obviously had wider-reaching impacts than just chess. And one of those impacts was arguably the collapse of what had previously been the Russian Empire. Even after World War I officially ended in 1918, Civil War would continue in Russia until 1922, when the Bolsheviks would finish overthrowing the previous czarist regime and go on to establish the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, a.k.a. The USSR.
[00:38:13.53] [Jess] Chess becomes an integral part of Soviet society at this time. It represents the ideals of Communist revolution, logic, strategy and strength in numbers. Vladimir Lenin, the founding head of government in Soviet Russia and then the Soviet Union from 1917 to 1924, would make learning chess mandatory in all schools. Then, in the wake of World War II, Soviet-born World Chess Champion Mikhail Botvinnik would initiate a rigorous and systematic training regimen for students in the Soviet Union. This effort received substantial government support, with a level of backing seen in few other countries.
[00:38:53.28] [Ryan] And just like that, the Soviet chess machine is put into motion, training young comrades early and giving them the resources needed to become not just great but the best.
[00:39:04.90] [Gloomy music plays]
[00:39:05.25] And it works. The Soviet Union ends up producing a string of dominating chess masters.
[00:39:11.86] [Jess] Now, we already said that FIDE was established in 1924, but it would take over 20 years and another World War for the world's best chess players to agree that FIDE should be expanded from being just kind of a players union to include oversight of the world championship title. In fact, the Soviet Union had for most of that period refused to join FIDE, despite its vested interest in chess. But in 1947, with a vacant world championship seat at stake, the USSR sends an apology telegram and requests representation on future FIDE committees.
[00:39:49.15] [Ryan] Soviet players would hold the newly established, FIDE-governed World Chess Champion title starting in 1948, except for the period from 1972 to 1975, when our boy Bobby Fischer was champion.
[00:40:03.25] [Jess] If you want to hear more about that, you should go back and listen to our episode on the psychology of chess, where we talk about Bobby and Boris Spassky's big match.
[00:40:11.92] [Melodic saxophone music plays]
[00:40:12.84] [Ryan] So why does this matter? Why are we making you remember, or maybe learn for the first time, all this stuff about the history of Russia? Where are the aliens? Well, we're getting there. Don't worry.
[00:40:25.94] [Jess] But, again, you need to know the historical significance of the questions we're trying to find modern answers to. And one of those questions is, what's going to happen to chess as the lines between classical and online begin to blur? Classical chess today is still considered very buttoned up. Lots of rules and regulations guarded by entities like FIDE, and FIDE is supposed to be impartial. They're literally based in Switzerland. But FIDE is only as impartial as the people who form it, and people tend to not be as impartial as they think they are, especially when there's money and politics on the line.
[00:41:05.59] [Ryan] We've talked fairly extensively about Bobby Fischer's quote unquote, madness. One of the supposedly paranoid accusations he levelled after the 1962 Candidates Tournament, which, like most of the World Chess Championships, saw the world title pass from one Soviet player to another, was that the Soviets were colluding as a team to prevent a non-Soviet player from winning the title.
[00:41:28.96] [Music ends]
[00:41:29.64] A 2009 paper titled, Did the Soviets Collude? A Statistical Analysis of Championship Chess 1940-1978 examines, quote, "whether players from the former Soviet Union acted as a cartel in international all-play-all tournaments, intentionally drawing against one another in order to focus effort on non-Soviet opponents, to maximize the chance of some Soviet winning," end quote. The conclusion was that the collusion accusation was probably true. Here's Emilia again.
[00:42:01.41] [Emilia Castelao] I think that FIDE did a really good job at the time of, you know, talking with players and recognizing that the Russians were colluding. A few statisticians published an academic article, and they were able to show that, you know, the Russians were colluding. Like, it wasn't just pure coincidences that they were getting these draws. And so, I think in that case, FIDE did a good job of, you know, talking to Bobby Fischer and other players involved and explaining that, you know, this was happening. But in this case, it's hard because when Bobby Fischer accused the Russians of colluding, the people running FIDE and the US had political motivations to cater to Bobby Fischer's interests. Even-- he wasn't wrong. Like, they were colluding. But also at the same time, it was something that was also politically motivated.
[00:43:01.43] So I think that taking, kind of, FIDE's political history into account and the way that they work in their hierarchical structure. We're going to need change within FIDE and within the chess community in order to, I guess, get the kind of results that people, I guess, are hoping for.
[00:43:21.44] [Gloomy music plays]
[00:43:21.79] [Jess] I think that's pretty convincing, personally. But if you don't want to just trust the math, Yuri Averbakh, the head of the Soviet team in 1962, confirmed in a 2002 interview that at least three of the top Soviet players had colluded to draw all their games.
[00:43:39.45] [Ryan] But like Emilia says, FIDE had to take into account the political motivations at play. The Cold War tension between the USA and the USSR had started just two years after the end of World War II in 1947, the same year that the Soviets had finally given in and asked to join FIDE. So to keep the peace, rather than directly penalizing the USSR or barring them from future attempts at the title, FIDE would instead change the format of future Candidates Tournaments from multi-round round-robin style to a series of bracketed elimination matches in order to eliminate the possibility of collusion.
[00:44:18.90] [Jess] Now, whether the peace was in fact kept is debatable. But other than Soviet players defecting and a handful of other conflicts between FIDE and the Soviet Chess Federation, things were relatively calm for the next couple decades.
[00:44:34.12] [Music ends]
[00:44:34.94] That is, until the 1990s.
[00:44:37.28] [Ronald Reagan] Mr Gorbachev, tear down this wall!
[00:44:42.16] [Cheering]
[00:44:44.14] [Mellow electronic music plays]
[00:44:44.63] [Jess] The USSR would formally be dissolved in 1991. That's when Ryan was born.
[00:44:50.46] [Ryan] Wooo!
[00:44:51.35] Three years later, in 1994-- that's when Jess was born--
[00:44:55.54] [Jess] Wooo!
[00:44:56.87] [Ryan] --the fifth elected president of FIDE, Florencio Campomanes of the Philippines, would resign. Having served as president since 1982, many FIDE delegates held the opinion that Campomanes was corrupt due to some financial irregularities and accusations around election manipulation. Seeing the writing on the wall, Campomanes agreed to step down, but he demanded that Kirsan-- yup, that Kirsan-- would succeed him as president. The request completely sidestepped the existing FIDE election statutes, but the delegates agreed and gave the presidency to Kirsan for a limited one-year period.
[00:45:37.23] [Jess] In 1995, the new Russian President, Boris Yeltsin, backed Kirsan to have him properly elected as the head of FIDE. Fide elections, like FIFA, grant each country's federation one vote, regardless of size. This system allows for coordinated efforts where a country can rally smaller federations' support of a chosen candidate. With Russia at the helm, it was easy to generate enough sway to elect Kirsan.
[00:46:03.61] [Ryan] Along with being the president of FIDE, Kirsan was also the head of the Republic of Kalmykia in the Russian Federation from 1993 to 2010. During his ruling, he was, for lack of a better term, an autocrat, meaning he had complete and absolute power. As soon as he was elected president in 1993, he got rid of parliament, amended the constitution, and lengthened his term in office. How very Russian of him. He also was vocal and transparent about not only his distaste for the ugliness of democracy, but also how corrupt his republic was under his leadership.
[00:46:43.10] [Sinister synth music plays]
[00:46:43.51] [Jess] Kirsan's friendliness towards dictators was a problem throughout his career. In 1996, he intended to hold the FIDE World Championship in Baghdad because the Iraqi leader, Saddam Hussein, had made the best offer of $2 million. Iraq had already been under UN economic embargo since 1990. After facing international opposition and pressure to not let Iraq host, Kirsan relocated the championship to his home country of Kalmykia.
[00:47:14.18] [Ryan] Maybe this is what Kirsan had intended all along, as it aligned with his ambition to establish Kalmykia as a global chess centre. At this time, Kirsan was also sinking millions of government dollars into chess projects, including the construction of Chess City, an Olympic-style village centred around a massive domed chess hall.
[00:47:34.93] [Jess] Which ended up being pretty controversial, as well, since Kalmykia is a poverty-stricken republic of about 300,000 people. Mismanagement under the USSR in the latter half of the 20th century had degraded the once fruitful agricultural economy into the first ever man-made desert, an official UN-designated environmental disaster. So, yeah, people noticed when Kirsan started funnelling the little they had in their depressed economy into a $50 million tribute to chess. But despite criticism over such lavish spending in such a poor country, Kirsan faced little opposition. That autocrat thing again.
[00:48:18.29] Even the 1998 murder of journalist Larisa Yudina, who had been investigating this extravagance, did not end up impacting his political career-- even though the two perpetrators convicted were Kalmykian government aides. Again, classic dictatorship stuff.
[00:48:35.84] [Music ends]
[00:48:36.16] By the way, you can put your seat belt back on now because we're at the aliens part.
[00:48:39.50] [Ryan] Woo-hoo.
[00:48:40.68] [Seat belt clicks]
[00:48:41.95] [Ryan] In a 2001 interview with journalist Vladimir Pozner, Kirsan claimed he'd been the victim of an alien abduction in 1997. Here's an excerpt of the interview Kirsan gave. Quote, "It was a Saturday. In September 1997, I was preparing to travel back to Kalmykia, and in the evening I had driven back to my apartment on Leontievsky Lane, here, in Moscow. In the evening, I did some reading, watched some television, and then went to bed. And then, probably, I had already fallen asleep when I sensed that the balcony had opened and someone was calling me. I went over and saw something like a transparent half tube. I went into this tube and saw people in yellow spacesuits. I am often asked in what language I spoke with them. Probably on the level of thought, because there wasn't a lot of oxygen, a lot of air. They made me understand, make a little adjustment here and everything will be normal. And then came the excursion in their ship. They even said to me, now we have to take some probes from a certain planet. Then there was a dialogue. Why do you not come on our television channels and say that you are here, and see us and interact with us? They said, we are not ready for contact. And then they brought me back the same way."
[00:50:07.46] "I would probably not believe this had happened if not for three witnesses-- my driver, minister, and my assistant, who arrived in the morning and discovered that I was not at home. Everything was in its place. The balcony was open. It was the top floor. They looked around and began to telephone some acquaintances. There was no news from them, either. Then they sat in the kitchen and discussed where to call, where to ask for help, because the telephones and other things were in their places. The apartment was locked, but they had my key. But then they saw me coming out of the bedroom, heading for the kitchen. They were looking at me like this, and I said, please make me some eggs. We must hurry to the airport. They said, where were you? And I gave this rather normal answer. Well, I was flying. I was on a flying saucer. They were offended and said, we are asking you seriously. And then we sat down and began to think it through logically. That is, there was a period of time, around an hour, where they were in my apartment and I was not there. One of them had been in the hall, and I could not have got past him. And I appeared from the bedroom where the door was opened on to the balcony. They were in shock over this for several months afterwards, and logically, it was as if I was not there and then appeared. This can be proven. On the other hand, with our reasoning up until now, when I talk with them, I believe and yet do not believe in it," end quote.
[00:51:35.40] [Gloomy music plays]
[00:51:35.88] I've had bad dreams, too, where upon waking I feel as if they are real. And then I have a coffee and am reminded of this thing called logic. I then reflect on said dream and deduce that some things are highly improbable. I usually keep that dream to myself instead of telling the nation how silly of a person I am. That's just me. I usually like to play Scully when something appears irrational to me.
[00:52:02.18] [Jess sighs]
[00:52:02.55] [Jess] I don't know. What if he was actually abducted by aliens, though? Like, you don't think aliens exist? You think we're the only ones out here? You talk about infinity being this beautiful thing with endless possibilities, but you're drawing the line at aliens?
[00:52:18.97] [Ryan] That's such a Mulder thing to say.
[00:52:20.32] [David Duchovny as Fox Mulder] Do you believe in the existence of extraterrestrials?
[00:52:24.64] [Gillian Anderson as Dana Scully] Logically, I would have to say no. Given the distances needed to travel from the far reaches of space, the energy requirements would exceed a spacecraft's capabilities.
[00:52:33.83] [Mulder] Conventional wisdom. Now, when convention and science offer us no answers, might we not finally turn to the fantastic as a plausibility?
[00:52:43.30] [Melocid saxophone music plays]
[00:52:43.92] [Ryan] Anyway, this is the same interview Kirsan also says he believes chess was brought to Earth by these aliens, because that's the only way to explain its global spread before the invention of the internet. He'd reiterate these claims repeatedly over the years, because it makes sense that you could only find out about chess through the internet.
[00:53:05.33] [Jess] Yeah, it's not like we just spent the whole first half of this episode talking about how chess spread.
[00:53:11.51] [Ryan] Remember, this is the President of FIDE, the head of a small country. Just picture that for a second. A president spewing complete and utter nonsense only to be reelected on a number of occasions. Or maybe that one hits a bit too close to home.
[00:53:28.29] [reporter] What do you say to voters who have concerns about your capabilities to serve?
[00:53:32.70] [Donald Trump] Well, I took two tests, cognitive tests. I aced them. I just won two club championships-- not even senior-- two regular club championships. To do that, you have to be quite smart and you have to be able to hit the ball a long way. And I do it.
[00:53:46.72] [Jess] Back to chess.
[00:53:48.05] [Sinister synth music plays]
[00:53:48.73] [Ryan] On top of all this, Kirsan's controversial ties to dictators continues to be a problem. In 2011, he played a publicized chess game with Libyan President Muammar Gaddafi shortly before Gaddafi's death. Gaddafi would posthumously be condemned by many for various human rights violations and the financing of global terrorism. In 2015, Kirsan's association with totalitarian Syrian President Bashar al-Assad would lead to him being named by the USA as a Specially Designated National and placed on a sanctions list. Kirsan denied the allegations but was forced to step back from FIDE's legal and financial operations, though he still remained president.
[00:54:32.57] [Jess] Kirsan was quoted at one point in the Daily Beast-- such a reputable news source-- as having said, quote, "I like them all the same way. Saddam Hussein, Muammar Gaddafi, the Dalai Lama, or Vladimir Putin. Everyone who supports the idea of chess playing is my friend," end quote.
[00:54:53.10] [Mellow electronic music plays]
[00:54:53.56] By that logic, it seems as though Kirsan would be friends with Alexander Pichushkin, the Chessboard Killer, or maybe even Claude Bloodgood, chess aficionado and matricidal maniac.
[00:55:05.90] [Ryan] That's an excellent throwback to our bonus episode, all about chess and murder. If you skipped that one, you should reconsider going back. We even kept it under 30 minutes.
[00:55:18.76] [Jess] We are so good at podcasting.
[00:55:20.81] [Chuckling]
[00:55:22.62] [Gloomy music plays]
[00:55:23.07] In 2017, FIDE finally announces Kirsan's resignation, which he denies. But I mean, if the organization is saying you're out, you're kind of out, babe. By 2018, FIDE's Swiss bank accounts are closed due to the US sanctions brought on by Kirsan's affection for dictators' money, and he's banned from holding any FIDE office for six months. He eventually decides not to run in the 2018 FIDE election.
[00:55:51.01] [Ryan] Russian Arkady Dvorkovich succeeds Kirsan as FIDE president. He has a lot of free time on his hands in 2018, you see, since he just finished a posting as the Deputy Prime Minister of Russia for his dear friend and confidant Dmitry Medvedev. You might recognize Medvedev's name. He's a prominent associate and puppet of Vladimir Putin, who's held various positions in the Russian government for much of his career. Safe to say, Russia still has a lot of influence over FIDE, and this is in spite of the two-year conditional ban of the Chess Federation of Russia that was announced this year-- so 2024-- for violations related to Russia's invasion of and continued aggression against Ukraine.
[00:56:34.96] [Jess] We'll talk more about Russia's current influence in our last episode, because it's still quite controversial and there's more that needs to be said about it. But at the end of the day, even though a lot of it is problematic, we still need to talk about it and remember it. Just like we saw with Bobby Fischer, the legacy of greatness in Russian chess has come at a very high price. The history of this sport is a dark one, and we need to make sure we don't lose sight of that.
[00:57:08.87] [Ryan] Okay, that's really heavy. So here's what Ben Johnson, author and host of the Perpetual Chess Podcast, said when we asked him who he thinks the greatest chess player of all time is.
[00:57:20.25] [Ben Johnson] It's either Magnus or Kasparov. To be clear, Fischer, obviously, he had an incredible-- incredibly dominant period, but it was so short that I don't think you can put him in the same conversation as Magnus and Kasparov. I guess I would lean towards Magnus only because Kasparov had these sort of institutional advantages at the time that he competed. He had the Soviet machine and then sort of his own team behind him in later years. And because it was the pre-computer age, if you have, like, you know, five Grandmasters who you can afford to pay to come up with the greatest opening lines-- like, at that time, for anyone trying to catch him, I mean, the rest of the, you know, top 50 players in the world are just surviving, really. They're not getting rich by any means. Whereas he has this whole network. So, I would lean towards Magnus because obviously Magnus is very wealthy and successful, but the online tools and use of these engines has sort of democratized the knowledge of chess, where, like, you know, having a few extra people working for you is not the same advantage it would have been then when the strongest players are all computers that you can rent for, you know, whatever it is, 50 bucks a month. I mean, and even the ones that you can download for free are like 3500 strength or whatever. So I would lean towards Magnus, but I, of course, wish he would have defended his title a couple more times and added to his resume.
[00:58:55.24] [Gloomy music plays]
[00:58:56.01] [Jess] Again, we can't understate how powerful the Russian chess machine was and is, but the point of this episode isn't to pin everything wrong with chess on one country. We just want to shine a light on how historical examples of chess stewardship have gone awry so that we can avoid those mistakes in the future. That being said, we need to keep in mind that there's lots of other kinds of influence that exist in chess outside of the traditional political realm. We're entering an era where, even though being affiliated with Russia won't necessarily give you that edge anymore, it still doesn't mean that chess is fair.
[00:59:36.15] [Ryan] This is a new guest on the show, but you're going to be hearing more from him over these last couple of episodes. His name is Jesse Ball, and he's an award-winning writer and also a chess enthusiast. He's actually my favourite writer of all time, but we'll talk more about that later. For now, I'll stop fanboying and let you listen to the clip.
[00:59:57.78] [Jesse Ball] There are different kinds of cheating. Like, I think it's cheating that Magnus for the last 10 years has had, like, Norwegian supercomputers to draw from for all of his analysis. Like, if you're Hans Niemann, you have, like, a Dell laptop or something to do your, you know, number crunching. But he has, like, submarines, like, going around under the Arctic with, like, supercomputers who are trying to find a refutation to the, you know, King's Gambit. I mean, it's not fair, frankly. You know? And that's one of the biggest problems, is that once you become funded. Like, I would say, if it used to be if you were in, like, the top seven, maybe, then you could really make a living out of it, you know? But not now, maybe. It's, like, top 10 or top 15, but even before that, like, just paying trainers and doing all these things. These tournaments don't have that much prize money, you know? So I think that there is a King of the Hill thing, where once you're at the top, you have much, much more, like, a standing advantage.
[01:01:05.03] I think as far as cheating goes, there's the general environment that produces the individual that goes to the contest, and that whole arena is rife with, I think, unfairness.
[01:01:16.06] [Sombre music plays]
[01:01:23.50] [Ryan] We've asked a lot of questions in this episode. Where did chess come from? When was it invented? Where is it going? Why does it have such a long-lasting appeal? Why did we spend so much time and effort packing your brain with the history of FIDE?
[01:01:39.64] [Jess] Some of those questions have now been answered to the best of our abilities, but some of them we still have to grapple with, in future episodes and beyond.
[01:01:50.57] [Ryan] The reason we need you to understand how FIDE has evolved is because this organization represents all that classical chess has become-- noble but corrupt, slow and gruelling, the best of the best, and the worst of the worst.
[01:02:07.28] [Jess] Classical chess is a game of legacy-- Fischer, Kasparov, Magnus. The top three players of all time in this game have all tried at various points to separate themselves from FIDE with minimal success. They each put forward institutional changes to alter the way the game is played, to make it more fair, enjoyable, and popular. But no one has fully succeeded. Amazingly, and in spite of all the struggles chess has weathered, both historically and modernly, it carries on. So I guess that means we have one more question to answer. Why chess?
[01:02:48.15] [Music ends]
[01:02:48.64] Here's Emilia.
[01:02:50.27] [Emilia Castelao] FIDE has political issues. This is well documented. But I think that it's very important to have an international organization that is outside the corporate sphere, that is outside the national level, that is overlooking chess, because I'm just-- I don't even really know the answer, but chess just has like this allure to people that they don't really, like, understand, but people want to watch people play chess even if they don't really know how to play. And people want to, like, learn how to play chess. There's kind of this mystery of, like, really smart people play chess. People who can, you know, think beyond the standard ways of thinking are people that play chess. And I think it's really important to have a governing body that overlooks that, and protects that, and also protects FIDE's cultural history that is unique to any other sport out there.
[01:03:53.73] It's absolutely insane just how much historical archival material exists around the game of chess. And I don't believe, obviously, that that is a priority for things like chess.com.
[01:04:08.12] [Ryan] Here's Jesse.
[01:04:09.71] [Jesse Ball] The reason why we like to play chess is because of what's unexpected or what's, like, what's difficult for us as humans about it, all the hiding places that there are. The best move sometimes is just very hard to see. And then as soon as you see it, you don't understand how you couldn't see it all along. So then the best move is, like, hiding obliquely, just in the way that the knight moves. So the knight in some sense represents the essence of what makes chess quite, quite beautiful, I think. And, you know, the emotionality with which we infuse our lives makes us completely illogical.
[01:04:50.48] [Jess] And here's one last parting thought from David Shenk's The Immortal Game. Quote, "Chess is an ultimately indomitable peak that gets steeper and steeper with every step," end quote.
[01:05:02.98] [Mellow music plays]
[01:05:03.32] [Ryan] Players keep wanting to try to summit that peak-- until, like Magnus and Kasparov, they don't anymore. But the thing that stops them is not usually the game itself. It's the struggle for trappings around the game to progress, for the rules and regulations to modernize. Limitations are imposed, and while the original goal of those restrictions might have been to better chess, we've seen many times over how the shadows of corruption and petty politics tend to loom large in this sport.
[01:05:38.54] [Music ascends]
[01:05:43.02] [Rooked outro music plays]
[01:05:46.02] [Jess] Next time on Rooked, we'll take you from history books to the present day of chess, beyond FIDE and OTB. Yep, we're going digital, into online chess and streaming, delving into the lawless space that is the internet.
[01:06:01.12] [Dial-up fax modem rings]
[01:06:02.88] [Ryan] You'll be hearing from players on the front lines of the latest chess revolution-- players like Lile Koridze and James Canty III.
[01:06:13.35] [James Canty III] Yeah, I'm a FIDE Master. I've been playing 22 years. I'm actually from Detroit, Michigan. A lot of people don't know that I started playing FIDE in 2015, which is, like, literally right around the corner. I mean, it wasn't that long ago that I just learned about FIDE. I used to call it "Fighd" because I didn't even know what it was. I'm from, you know, Detroit, and, like, you know, they didn't tell us what the process is. So I only played US Chess. I mean, I have, like, if you look at my US Chess, it says I played in, like, 100 some tournaments, a lot of tournaments, lots of games, over 100 something tournaments. But all of them, 90% of them, maybe 95, were all USCF.
[01:06:48.22] I didn't know, and my parents didn't know. Nobody really knew. I hit Expert going into high school and graduated a Master, so I really had a chance to actually be a very, you know, probably more titled than when I am right now, meaning International Master or Grandmaster. I could have got it probably a lot earlier if I would have been playing FIDE back then, but I didn't know about it. So I learned already out of high school-- graduated in 2010-- out of high school, five years later. Now I'm like, let's play FIDE. Like, what the heck is this? So that's where I'm at now. I'm just trying to catch up playing, like, a lot of catch up there.
[01:07:19.24] A goal of mine is actually to give back to people that don't know about FIDE and let them understand this is the route you need to take. Don't-- I mean, yeah, USCF is cool, any chess federation is great, but if you want to get to the titles, you actually need to get to the FIDE route. You need to go the FIDE route, play as many as possible.
[01:07:36.06] [Rooked outro plays]
[01:07:36.40] [Ryan] We're still trying to find those answers of where the heck chess is going, and we are getting one step closer by figuring out where chess is right now.
[01:07:45.55] [Donald Trump, synthesized with reverb] You have to be quite smart.
[01:07:47.69] [Haliey Welch, synthesized with reverb] Hawk tuah!
[01:07:48.46] [Laughter from E.T., pitched up]
[01:07:49.25] [Mulder, synthesized with reverb] Do you believe in the existence of extraterrestrials?
[01:07:52.58] [Rooked outro plays]
[01:07:54.46] [Jess] Thank you to our King-tier Patreon subscribers-- Umaima Baig, Madelyn, Gord, and Mya Schmidt, Stefan Vezina, Marie Edwards, and Derek Keane.
[01:08:10.43] [Rooked] The Cheaters' Gambit is written and produced by me, Jess Schmidt.
[01:08:14.34] [Ryan] And by me, Ryan Webb.
[01:08:15.99] [Jess] Our amazing music is by the ever-talented Lorna Gilfedder.
[01:08:19.26] [Ryan] Our marketing is by media genius Bailey Simone Photography.
[01:08:22.50] [Jess] Our executive producers are Rooney and Indigo.
[01:08:24.72] [both] Speak.
[01:08:26.34] [Rooney and Indigo howling]
[01:08:29.11] [Rooked outro plays]
[01:08:30.96] [Jess] This podcast is recorded on the traditional Treaty 7 territory of the Blackfoot Confederacy, the land of the Siksika, the Kainai, the Piikani, as well as the Stoney Nakoda and Tsuut'ina Nations.
[01:08:42.24] [Ryan] We acknowledge that this territory is home to the Metis Nation of Alberta, Region 3, within the historical Northwest Metis homeland. In the spirit of respect, reciprocity, and truth, we honour and acknowledge all nations, Indigenous and non, who live, work, and play on this land, and who honour and celebrate this territory.
[01:09:00.93] [Jess] This gathering place, and therefore this podcast, provides us with an opportunity to engage in and demonstrate reconciliation. The Government of Canada has not followed through on a number of the Calls to Action that have been suggested by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada.
[01:09:18.37] [Ryan] One of the calls to action is for the Government of Canada, on behalf of all Canadians, to jointly develop with Aboriginal peoples a Royal Proclamation of Reconciliation to be issued by the Crown. This would include, but not be limited to, the following commitment-- that the Canadian Government repudiate concepts used to justify European sovereignty over Indigenous lands and peoples, such as the Doctrine of Discovery and terra nullius. The Doctrine of Discovery refers to a set of international legal principles largely developed between the 15th and 16th centuries. Terra nullius can be translated to "territory without a master" or "nobody's land."
[01:09:58.22] According to the Canadian Museum for Human Rights, quote, "The Doctrine of Discovery is a legal and religious concept that has been used for centuries to justify Christian colonial conquest." In March of 2023, the Vatican issued a statement formally repudiating the Doctrine of Discovery. The Canadian Government has yet to do such.
[01:10:18.11] The TRC wishes for the federal government to formally renounce Discovery because it would acknowledge responsibility and recognize the obligations Canada has in the present to First Nations. This acknowledgement would help in ending an egregious legal justification based on racial superiority for the subjugation of First Nations and other Indigenous peoples.
[01:10:38.43] [Music ends]
[01:10:38.81] Do better, Canada.