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How Chess Works · Stuff You Should Know

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  Speaker 1: Brought to you by the all new Toyota Corolla. Welcome
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: to you Stuff you should Know from House Stuff Works
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  Speaker 1: dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Murray
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  Speaker 1: Head with me as always as Charles W. Chuck Bryant
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  Speaker 1: and uh Steffe should know Mary Head. And here's the
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  Speaker 1: guy who did One Night in Bangkok. Oh, I know,
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  Speaker 1: I just don't get the reference. Oh, it's about Bobby. Sure,
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  Speaker 1: it's from the musical Chess. What we talked about this before.
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  Speaker 1: I have no idea what you're talking in an episode? Jerry?
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  Speaker 1: Did we not? I'm almost positive we did. Jerry doesn't listen.
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  Speaker 1: What a yeah? I think I have a faint memory.
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  Speaker 1: One Night in Bangkok is from the the musical Chess,
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  Speaker 1: which I didn't know existed, right, And it's based loosely
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  Speaker 1: on the story of Bobby Fisher. Okay, I do remember
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  Speaker 1: that now, and I think I was just as surprised
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  Speaker 1: back then. It's but it's the truth. Tell me in
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  Speaker 1: another couple of years, and again, what's with Murray Head.
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  Speaker 1: That can't be the guy's real name? And why would
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  Speaker 1: that be a name you adopted although it's perfect for
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  Speaker 1: five I bet that's his name. Murray Head. Well, look
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  Speaker 1: into it. What parents name their kid Murray head? Was
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  Speaker 1: his last name was head, right, I'm saying yeah, but
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  Speaker 1: no doctor and mrs Head. Maybe doctor and doctor head.
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  Speaker 1: Maybe so maybe his parents are both doctors, but don't
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  Speaker 1: you think that. Probably then if his last name really
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  Speaker 1: was Head, it was actually like Hedowski or something like that,
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  Speaker 1: Murray Hedowski. I can live with Murray Head. It's terrible
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  Speaker 1: that we Chuck's checking his watch, which is the universal
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  Speaker 1: sign for me to hurry things along. Now I'm not.
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  Speaker 1: And I need to apologize to you because, uh, it's
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  Speaker 1: a it's a busy week for me. And I said, hey,
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  Speaker 1: let's do one that is, uh, it's not super tough.
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  Speaker 1: And I sent you chess. You were like today, You're like,
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  Speaker 1: I've never played chess before. I'm not in my life. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: I had no idea. I apologize for some reason. I
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  Speaker 1: don't even know how to play checkers. Yeah, And now
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  Speaker 1: that I think about it, I don't see you as
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  Speaker 1: a chess player until now. I don't know you more
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  Speaker 1: as a type of person who would walk in and
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  Speaker 1: like drop a bowling ball on the chess board and say,
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  Speaker 1: I went, you got me way wrong. You're not like
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  Speaker 1: super strategic and tactical. What he's a big stick? Oh,
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  Speaker 1: I can be both ways. You you're just talking about
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  Speaker 1: your own experience with me. Oh yeah, I've can play
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  Speaker 1: chess and I intend to. Are you gonna play? Yeah?
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  Speaker 1: After researching to say emailed you, I was like, we
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  Speaker 1: have to start playing chess. She said her dad taught
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  Speaker 1: her like the basic moves when she was a kid,
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  Speaker 1: but she never really got into it. So we're gonna
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  Speaker 1: start playing chess. Well I never got into it, got
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  Speaker 1: into it, but I did learn when I was probably
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  Speaker 1: a young teenager. And uh, my brother and I played
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  Speaker 1: for a little while. Who won? I think he always won?
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  Speaker 1: But I never ever learned strategy. I was like, I
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  Speaker 1: learned how the pieces moved, and then as a dumb
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  Speaker 1: little thirteen year old kind of went about my way
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  Speaker 1: trying to get the king in checkmate. Right, you sold
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  Speaker 1: your Detective Comics number one and stopped playing the piano,
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  Speaker 1: And yeah, I started drinking beer. By the way, I
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  Speaker 1: looked at Murray Head. I rarely do this. His name
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  Speaker 1: is Murray Seafield St. George Head. So his name really
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  Speaker 1: is Murray Head. Yeah, why didn't he go by Murray St.
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  Speaker 1: George or Seafield St. George. That's awesome. Yeah, it sounds
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  Speaker 1: like you should be wearing a cravat anytime you say that.
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  Speaker 1: All right, so let's play some chess. Okay. So, um,
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  Speaker 1: you were just saying that you stopped playing chess and
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  Speaker 1: you really never got strategy. No, but I remember, like
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  Speaker 1: I could sit down and play right now, so I
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  Speaker 1: probably could too after reading this article eighteen times. Um.
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  Speaker 1: But the the thing that I gathered from this article
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  Speaker 1: is that had you kept playing, you would have eventually
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  Speaker 1: stopped thinking about how you can move your your pieces
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  Speaker 1: and started thinking strategically. That that just kind of comes
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  Speaker 1: with time and practice. It's the natural result of playing chess. Yea,
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  Speaker 1: And I think I remember probably getting a little better.
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  Speaker 1: But unless you know, like the bona fide bona fide strategies, uh,
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  Speaker 1: I don't know, there's a ceiling to how good you
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  Speaker 1: can get, you know. So we're gonna get email about this.
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  Speaker 1: It's bona fide as like a descriptor. But if it
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  Speaker 1: is your bona fide is like a noun, like your credentials,
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  Speaker 1: then that's how it pronounced. Bona fide can be correct. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: bona fide is right. But when you're talking about like
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  Speaker 1: my bona fide is like are that I'm great? But
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  Speaker 1: um I'm bona fide great? Gotcha? I think that's right
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  Speaker 1: that and I thought was I was just mispronouncing as
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  Speaker 1: a joke like a normally do. Let's talk chess, alright.
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  Speaker 1: Chess for me, one of my favorite things about the
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  Speaker 1: game is that it is has pointed out in this article,
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  Speaker 1: is the great equalizer and sitting sitting in chess is
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  Speaker 1: very cool to me that chess the brainiest nerds in
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  Speaker 1: a classroom or a library might play. Or you can
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  Speaker 1: walk by Washington Square Park and seeing these old Kajars
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  Speaker 1: playing chess that have been like battling it out for years,
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  Speaker 1: or the kid from fresh It really played chess speed chess.
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  Speaker 1: So it really just is it spans ages and races
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  Speaker 1: and social and economic groups. Is it's really kind of cool.
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  Speaker 1: It's not like just like like some snooty game, you know. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: I mean everybody can play it and it's old. Yes,
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  Speaker 1: it is. The Indians can actually claim or India can
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  Speaker 1: claim chess the invention of chess and that those are Indians.
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  Speaker 1: I know, if the one for Christopher Columbus. We wouldn't
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  Speaker 1: have to make that distinction. That's the second appearance today. Yes,
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  Speaker 1: it does. Is rioted in India, believe to have been
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  Speaker 1: born in about a d. Three hundred um by the
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  Speaker 1: name Kataraga, and it was a four person game. Kataranga
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  Speaker 1: was with sixty four squares on the board, but the
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  Speaker 1: moves are similar to the modern game, and the chess
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  Speaker 1: we all know and love is most closely tied to
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  Speaker 1: that original Indian game and not some of these other ones.
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  Speaker 1: We actually don't know the rules of Kataraga. It was
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  Speaker 1: lost to the ages. But there's a guy, but we
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  Speaker 1: do know that it did exist. We I think we
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  Speaker 1: have our hands on Katarango boards and it's obviously the
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  Speaker 1: predecessor of chess. Um But there's a guy. Read this
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  Speaker 1: article called Big Game Hunter from two thousand eight in
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  Speaker 1: Time magazine. It's about this guy named Irving Finkel, and
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  Speaker 1: that a great name, believing Finkel. Yeah, And he works
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  Speaker 1: at the British Museum and he's a game expert and
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  Speaker 1: basically his job is too far in old games and
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  Speaker 1: to figure out their rules. Man, is cool. Do you
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  Speaker 1: know how smart that guy has to be? Dude? So
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  Speaker 1: I don't know if he's worked on Kataranga or what,
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  Speaker 1: but I guarantee like that's on his like bucket list
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  Speaker 1: is to figure out exactly how Kataraga was played. That's
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  Speaker 1: pretty awesome. That's a well is it a job or
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  Speaker 1: is it? It's a gentle h good I think think so.
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  Speaker 1: Kataranga was originated about three in India, and a couple
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  Speaker 1: of hundred years later it made its way out to
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  Speaker 1: Persia Arang, Yeah, and the Persians um were firmly planted
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  Speaker 1: onto the Silk Road, and the Silk Road spread everything,
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  Speaker 1: it really did. Um. And one of the things that
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  Speaker 1: did spread was chat Trang or chat Trang and Uh
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  Speaker 1: it made it into uh Arabia and the Arabians or
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  Speaker 1: also referred to as the Moors when they invaded Spain
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  Speaker 1: or the Moops depending on whether you like I felt
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  Speaker 1: or not, and Uh. From there it's spread all through Europe, yes,
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  Speaker 1: and then of course eventually the America's and the rest
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  Speaker 1: of the continents. It spread like everything else spread, really
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  Speaker 1: it did. So our modern chest that we play today
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  Speaker 1: is traced back to rang Uh and that diasporas Chitrang.
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  Speaker 1: But of course the Chinese and the Japanese were like, well,
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  Speaker 1: just come up with our own bubble based it on chattaranga. Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: Like it seems like most cultures had a similar like
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  Speaker 1: slight variations UM, including Germany and the Byzantines who played
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  Speaker 1: on a circular board. Uh. Germans had three extra pieces
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  Speaker 1: that we don't use um in China and Japan, like
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  Speaker 1: you mentioned um, which they still play today their own versions.
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  Speaker 1: In China, it's called sankai and stended like the guy
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  Speaker 1: from NPR. Uh. And the board is a five by
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  Speaker 1: nine grid and it's green and two five by nine grids.
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  Speaker 1: It's expensive. Yeah, there are two five by nine grids
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  Speaker 1: separated by a moat. Well that's the part that I
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  Speaker 1: love best, the moat. It would it'd be cool if
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  Speaker 1: like you had a really great board that had like
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  Speaker 1: water in it and like a mini like sea monster
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  Speaker 1: swimming around. That's awesome. Uh. And the goal there instead
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  Speaker 1: of a king, you are supposed to topple the general, right,
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  Speaker 1: the general is that the top dog. Not a big
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  Speaker 1: difference in that place. But uh, the Japanese have one
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  Speaker 1: called she Go show ge I got it backwards? Um,
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  Speaker 1: and that's the nine by nine grid twenty game pieces,
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  Speaker 1: which is four more than chess twenty game pieces for
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  Speaker 1: each player. The big differences that they're all the same color. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: you think that's confusing, but apparently they face in a
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  Speaker 1: certain direction and that's how you tell what who, what
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  Speaker 1: piece belongs to whom. But I guess if you know
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  Speaker 1: the game, that's not super confusing. So, like I said,
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  Speaker 1: modern chess that we play now is basically closely resembles
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  Speaker 1: the Indian original Indian game. Did you say that? Uh?
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  Speaker 1: And in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, though, is when
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  Speaker 1: the queen basically became the most powerful piece on the board,
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  Speaker 1: which is very surprising. It. Yes, the fifteenth and sixteenth
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  Speaker 1: centuries the age of misogyny, that's when witches were were created.
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  Speaker 1: The idea of women being powerful was a bad thing,
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  Speaker 1: like the continuation of just women being held down. They
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  Speaker 1: at the same time, in chess, in this universally enjoyed game,
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  Speaker 1: the one obviously female piece was given the most power. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: but that was also like some pretty powerful queens at
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  Speaker 1: that time, right, it's a good point. I don't know.
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  Speaker 1: So there were some difference though between the pieces of course,
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  Speaker 1: in the Western game, like they had elephants in the
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  Speaker 1: Indian version, whereas we had nights. So just kind of
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  Speaker 1: character differences. Uh. And in the nineteen until the mid
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  Speaker 1: nineteenth century there were class differences as well, So like,
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  Speaker 1: if you're a wealthy person you have these big heavy
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  Speaker 1: chess pieces that would like fud and stay in place.
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  Speaker 1: If you're poor, you just had like chunks of wood
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  Speaker 1: that represented the pieces. And then in the mid nineteenth century,
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  Speaker 1: um Jean Jacques of Jacques of London created the design
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  Speaker 1: that we see in chess boards today, which is a
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  Speaker 1: symbol denoting what piece it is on top of the pedestal. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: and did you know you know the pawn it's like
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  Speaker 1: basically like a ball on top of like a base
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  Speaker 1: or something like that. It's supposedly supposed to represent the
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  Speaker 1: compass and square of the masons. Interesting. Oh and the
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  Speaker 1: pedal stores of different heights too. That's important to know. Yes,
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  Speaker 1: is all come into play? Who will um what else? Uh? Well?
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  Speaker 1: You you know these days you can just play with
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  Speaker 1: each other. You can play on a computer. They have
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  Speaker 1: computers that play people. I know we all remember when
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  Speaker 1: Deep Blue two beat Gary casper Off in the nineties.
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  Speaker 1: That was a big deal. Like one of a few
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  Speaker 1: times chess makes front page news these days. You know,
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  Speaker 1: it's got to be a big deal. It was a
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  Speaker 1: huge deal because they've been trying to build computers that
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  Speaker 1: could beat humans at chess for decades and they finally
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  Speaker 1: did it. And I mean cass Brov was the undisputed champ.
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  Speaker 1: He was the the best chess player walking the planet,
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  Speaker 1: like everyone agreed, and he got beat by a computer.
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  Speaker 1: I bet he was pissed. Oh but he was too.
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  Speaker 1: Can't you imagine that if the very at least you
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  Speaker 1: have a nightmare that night. All right, So let's if
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  Speaker 1: you've never played before, let's talk a little bit about
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  Speaker 1: the game itself. It's a two person game, not the
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  Speaker 1: four person game like it was originally. Um the end game,
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  Speaker 1: the goal is to attack the king, put the king
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  Speaker 1: in check, meaning it cannot move without being captured, which
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  Speaker 1: would be a checkmate. Yes, if you can get out
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  Speaker 1: of check you can keep playing. If there is no
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  Speaker 1: possible move the king can make, then you are in checkmate.
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  Speaker 1: Game over, which is a really odd little quirk of chess.
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  Speaker 1: The king actually is never captured. Yeah, it ends just
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  Speaker 1: before his capture witness capture becomes inevitable. Yeah, and captured,
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  Speaker 1: meaning like you don't take it off the board and
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  Speaker 1: rub it in. I guess it's the one piece that
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  Speaker 1: can never leave the board. It's an a legal move. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: and I've seen people knock over the king. I don't
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  Speaker 1: know if that's just a legit move or if that's
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  Speaker 1: a jerk move, but I've seen it happen. I have
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  Speaker 1: two Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm not sure about that. Fresh
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  Speaker 1: um they are the board is half white, the pieces
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  Speaker 1: are half white, half black. The board is half white
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  Speaker 1: and half black or white and dark. I'd like to
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  Speaker 1: quote the article if i'm uh. The rules of the
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  Speaker 1: game are based on the pieces, half of which are
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  Speaker 1: black and half of which are white. True game manufacturers
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  Speaker 1: who are in the business of fun create games with
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  Speaker 1: non traditional colors and replace typical game pieces with other characters,
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  Speaker 1: but for the purpose of this article, we will use
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  Speaker 1: the standard colors because we're talking about chess. I thought
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  Speaker 1: that was a great c A. Yeah, that's pretty funny.
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  Speaker 1: Game makers who are in the business of fun, I've
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: never seen those. I wonder what like other characters. I'm
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: sure like everybody who plays D and D R Star Tecker,
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: you know, what I'm saying. I have their own versions
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  Speaker 1: made by game manufacturers, and they're in the business of fun.
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: I do have a Star Wars monopoly, which is pretty fun. Um.
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  Speaker 1: So the chess board itself has sixty four squares that
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  Speaker 1: alternating color, like we said, across eight different rows. You've
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  Speaker 1: got horizontal rows called ranks, which are numbered one through eight. Yes,
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  Speaker 1: then you've got the vertical rows called files, rank and
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  Speaker 1: file lettered A through ah. So any square has a
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  Speaker 1: number letter designation. That's right, And uh, the four squares
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  Speaker 1: in the center are really the most important. Those are
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  Speaker 1: E four, E five, D four, and D five. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: and they're they're the most important for controlling the game.
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: Correct me if I'm wrong. It doesn't actually explicitly say
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: in the article. But that's because it's the easiest place
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  Speaker 1: to block and defend an attack from. So if you
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: control the center, you can move easily throughout anywhere on
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  Speaker 1: the rest of the board. Is that why controlling the
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: center is important? I think so, And I think, uh,
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: just in terms, if you were to look at chess
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: is like a military invasion. You don't want to be
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: trapped in the corner or against a wall, you know,
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: what I'm saying, you're probably most dangerous, like in the middle.
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: That's just a guess. Yeah, especially if you've got four
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: guys in the middle with all their backs together and
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: their guns pointed outward, and they'd just be like, you know,
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: this is exactly how I thought this would go. Uh.
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: So each player as sixteen starts with sixteen game pieces. Um,
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  Speaker 1: you have either all the black ones, are all the
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: white ones, and those consist of eight ponds, two rooks
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: that look like little castles, two nights that look like
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  Speaker 1: little horses, to bishops, which I guess they're they're sort
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: of hard to describe. They have a meter on top,
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: and a meter is the headwear of the maybe episcopalion
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: definitely the Catholic Church from Yeah, the bishop on up.
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: I think cardinals may basically you know, the funky headwear
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: that the pope wears. That's a meter. That's what's on
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  Speaker 1: top of the bishops piece. Yeah, and they vary greatly
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: like between manufacturers. I've seen um bishops that marked quite
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  Speaker 1: as ornate, you know. Yeah, but the ones that are
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: that were originally manufactured by Jean Jacques, and then I
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: think they're called the Eastman pieces. Um, they have a
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  Speaker 1: meter on top. Okay, uh, and then you've got your
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  Speaker 1: king and your queen. Uh. I believe the king usually
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: has a well likeness said. It all depends the king's tallest.
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: It is tallest, and that's how you remember what goes where? Um, starting,
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: and the board has to be a certain way as well.
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  Speaker 1: Is right? White is right? So like there there should
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  Speaker 1: always be the white square on your right corner. When
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  Speaker 1: you've got that set up, then you can start putting
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  Speaker 1: your pieces up, starting in the first rank, which is
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  Speaker 1: the horizontal road closest to you. Um, you want to
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  Speaker 1: put your rooks right, the little castle on the far
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  Speaker 1: left and the far right inside one. Inside of the
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  Speaker 1: rooks are the knights, then the bishops, and then you
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  Speaker 1: have two squares left and uh, the queen goes on
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  Speaker 1: the square that is the same color as her. That's right.
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: What's the phrase the carpet matches the drapes? Oh my god, no,
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: oh no. The queen's dress must always match your shoes, right,
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: that's right, that's how you remember. Yeah, And then the
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  Speaker 1: king goes in the remaining square. That's right. Then in
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  Speaker 1: the rank in front of that, you've got your pawns
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  Speaker 1: that's right, all lined up on the and the of
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  Speaker 1: those eight squares. So, like we said, the goal is
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  Speaker 1: to put the king in checkmate. And it helps to
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: think of it, like I said, as a game of war.
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  Speaker 1: Almost you want to use all your little soldiers, um,
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  Speaker 1: and we'll talk about how they can be moved to
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  Speaker 1: capture and remove pieces to eventually make the other king
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: vulnerable while also protecting your own king. Yeah, that's that's
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  Speaker 1: a big thing. Like if you overextend yourself in an attack,
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: you leave your king vulnerable. So it's not quite as
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: simple as going on the offensive. Strategic and I think
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: it bears repeating. Against is the point of the whole
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: game when you place when your opponent places your king
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: in a vulnerable situation where the king cannot get out
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: of without being checked or without being checkmated, that's checkmate
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: and the game is over. Yes, and the king uh
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: if if in check must make a move to get
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: out of check meaning either move the king or block
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: or capture the piece that has the king in check.
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: That's the only move you can make at that point. Yeah,
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: so chuck in a second, let's talk about them, the
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: individual pieces themselves, but first, let's do a message break
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: real quick. Okay, so you want to look a little
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: closer at an at the individual pieces. Yes, and this
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: is something I did not know. Each piece is assigned
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: a point value, but you don't keep score, No, basically
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: just how much power it has. Yeah, and it's basically
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: for you when you're thinking strategically, you can very quickly say, well,
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: this move would cost me this many points because I
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: could lose this east. So it's a good way of
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: just using shorthand for figuring out the value of a
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: particular strategic move. Yeah, and once you know it, you
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: don't even think of the points. You're like you just
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: innately kind of know, like this is a queen is
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: the most valuable. Yeah, I think it comes in most
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: handy for programming computers that play test to um. But
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: let's start with the rook, which it comes from the
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: Persian word rock are u k h which means chariot,
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: which is what the rook, which is now a castle,
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: originally was. And they think the castle is actually a
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: siege tower. Yeah, it looks like a little uh it's
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: called turret. Yeah, that's true. It is that, right, I believe. So, yeah,
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: it's a turret. Okay, um, but yes, so the rook
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: is the castle. That's right. It's worth of five points um.
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: And it can move along the ranks and files only
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: in a straight line, but it can move as far
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: as you want. If you have an open path from
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: one end of the board to the other, you can
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: slide that sucker all the way across. Uh. And if
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: you do that, something happens, which we'll talk about in
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: a minute. That's write something magical. Um, you can't jump
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: over any pieces, and it says that for each piece.
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: Let's just go ahead and say you can never jump
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: over a piece. No it's not checkers. No, it's not
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: the only one that can kind of jump over a
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: pieces a night which we'll see. But that one doesn't
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: even actually jump. It makes a normal standard move. Well
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: we're there, go ahead and say it. Okay, Well the
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: Night makes an L move that the Night is capable
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: of moving um forward two spaces and then to the
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: left or the right one space. So it makes a
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: little hook or crowbar or L movement with each move.
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: Or it can move over to and up one. Yeah,
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: that's what I said. Right, Well, you said forward to
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: and over one. It can also be to the left
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: to Okay, so it's it's always a combination of two,
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: two and one. It basically can make a turn, which
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: is the only piece that can make a turn. And
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: if you look at a chessboard and and see where
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: your night ends up, it looks like it it leapt
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: over a piece, but ultimately it's just making a left
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: or right, yeah, that's true, or an up or down. Um,
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: and that makes the night pretty pretty unique as far
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: as strategy goes. Yeah, the nights always screw me. Oh yeah, yeah,
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: they just they always would sneak up on me and
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: I would kind of forget that they could, you know,
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: move crazy turnover Creig Cray uh. And another good thing
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: to remember. First of all, it's a three point piece,
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: but um, if it starts on a light square, it's
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: gonna end up on a dark square and vice versa.
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: This I think it's just so basic that the article
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: just didn't even think it was important to mention. But
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: I want to make sure I have this right. You
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: want to get to a square where your opponent's pieces,
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: and when you move to that square, you take them
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: out of play there off the board, right, Yes, essentially,
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: when you can Uh. You when you can land on
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: another opponent's space where there is a piece, you just
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: knock it out and there auto play. They can't come
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: back in, can't come backain. And what you've just done
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: by doing that is weakening the defenses against your opposing king. Exactly.
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: Um onto the bishop topped with a meter. Like you said,
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: it's also worth a three spot. It goes diagonally. Um
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: cannot go left and right. It can only attack diagonally right.
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: But it's so it makes an X across the board. Yeah.
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: But like the rook, you can go and however far
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: you can go with it. But when you move it,
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: you have to go or else you lose a turn.
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: That's right. Then you've got your queen. It's worth nine points.
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: She's a little shorter, but man, the Queen is a
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: tough broad because she can go in any direction however far.
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: She wants to all eight directions on the board, basically
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: no restrictions as long as it's in in a straight line.
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: She can't turn right, she's so that makes her um
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: the most strategically valuable piece. Yeah, and the Queen's man,
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: they'll sneak up on you too, because she can be
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: all the way across the board and you'll make a
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: move and not even like realize that you just put
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: like a night in the path, you know, ten spaces
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: away until the jerk across from you captures your night
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: and you're like, oh man, I cannot wait to play
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: hate that lady. I am so excited about playing thanks
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: to this article. It's really fun. I'm gonna start playing again.
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: I think I just need to. I don't know who
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: and we could always play here. I guess I'll bring
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: my bowling ball. I bet that Ben Bowling plays chess. Oh,
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: I'm sure he probably speaks Chinese while he plays chess.
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: He probably like shook his head when he heard you
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: pronounce the Chinese version of He probably plays that. Sure, Um,
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: just as a bunny. He dressed up in my gremlin
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: outfit today. I was walking around there today again. How
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: did he do it already? Yeah? I thought you like
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: tweeted a picture Facebook the picture of him wearing the
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: gremlin outfit. I mean that happened today, It happened like
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: weeks before too. Wouldn't mean, Um, Ben Bowling, you should
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: support his awesome show. Two of them stuff they don't
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: want you to know and car stuff one of our colleagues. Um.
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: So finally, onto the king. Uh. The King can also
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: move in any direction, but just one at a time, um,
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: which is good for getting out of the way. But
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: the King is generally not like much of an attacker.
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: He's kind of a milktoast really like the queen wears
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: the pants in this relationship, she's she's the bad dude. Uh.
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: And like we said, if the king is threatened and
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: in check, he has to move to save himself. Yeah.
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: And if he goes, well, if I move here, I'm screweding.
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: If I move here, I'm screwing it. There's wait, there's
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: nowhere for me to move to get out of being attacked.
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: That's checkmate, baby. That's when the guy across from me
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: is very smug and just sitting there waiting for you
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: to realize it. Yeah. Or actually, traditionally you would call
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: out of here and checkmate, yes you know, checkmate? Uh?
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: Or actually I would say check and mate. I don't understand,
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: and it's probably super obnoxious and wrong. And then you
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: have your little ponds, the eight little guys up front,
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: the foot soldiers. They're basically cannon fodder pretty much. But ponds.
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: Some say there in lies the key. If you play
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: your ponds right, then you're in good shape. Did you know? Ponds?
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: Originally in the I think twelve thirteenth century, just to
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: make a more interesting each pond, depending on its place
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: on the rank, um had a name, like there was
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: the Gambler. Yeah, there was the doctor, the the Coward
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: of the county. Probably were they all Kenny Rogers songs? Yeah, exactly?
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: Um what else was there? There are a couple others
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: that were pretty interesting, but um, apparently it didn't stick.
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: The innkeeper the islands in the stream, right, so the
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: ponds can they're only worth one point? Um? They are defenders. Basically,
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: they only move one square at a time. I can't
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: go backwards, that can only go forwards, and they can
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: only attack diagonally right, So you can't I can't just
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: move upon. Like let's say you're upon and I'm upon.
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: I can't just come at you from straight ahead and
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: knock you out. We're basically just kind of staring at
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: each other. But if I was to the left or
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: right in front of you, I could go diagonally and
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: get get ahold of you. That makes sense, yes, okay,
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: it does I'm trying to visually, it's just as hard
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: to visualize. Yeah, and it's it's the kind of game
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: that sounds complicated, but once you play at once, you're like, okay,
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: this isn't so hard. So then the pawn can move um,
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: five directions left or right forward and then diagonally forward
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: or to the left or diagonally forward to the right right. No, no, no,
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: it cannot move left or right. Okay, So it can
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: only move forward diagonally to the left or diagonally to
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: the right. Correct three directions. And when you start the game,
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: it's the only time you can move your pond two spaces,
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: So you can move out upon two spaces on the
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: front row only um. After that, it can only move
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: one space at a time. Gotcha? All right, okay, so um,
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: let's talk about some rules like we haven't been already. Yeah,
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: the timer thing is, I never realized what the timer
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: was all about. I can't imagine how stressful that is. Yeah,
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: I thought the timer. I thought you had like each
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: player has like sixty seconds to complete a move or
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: something That is not true. No, Like those clocks with
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: the two faces and the buttons on top of each
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: face Um, they keep a predetermined amount of time a
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: total time, so say like an hour, so you have
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: an hour for this game, each have an hour, or okay,
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: so you each have an hour, so there's two hours
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: for the whole game. You divided the two hours into
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: one hour for each and then when it's your turn, Um,
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: your clock is running, and when you're done with your move,
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: you hit the button on top of your side and
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: it stops your clock and starts your opponent's clock. So
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: now they're eating away from that two hours. And then
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: if your opponent's time runs out, then you win just
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: based on that. Yeah, which is way cooler than I thought,
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: which was like you each have like two minutes to
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: complete a move. In this way, towards the end of
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: the game, you might have ten minutes left on your
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: clock and your opponent might have thirty minutes because you
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: took way too much time at the beginning, and then
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: you're forced into playing like way faster towards the end. Right,
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: pretty cool, So in my my the impression I have
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: is that this is something that you take up once
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: you've mastered chess, So well, that's kind of boring playing normally.
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: You have never played with it because I imagine it
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: changes everything. Alright, so let's play. Let's play with these
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: rules here. Why it always goes first, It always goes first. Um,
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: you cannot skip a turn. Nope, And therefore no player
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: can move twice in a row. Yeah, you can't, like
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: say I passed, you gotta move. Yeah, you can take
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: back a move, but only under a very specific circumstance.
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: We said that capturing the king is an illegal move. Ye,
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: So if you move your king into a place where
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: he will inevitably be captured, you moved him into check,
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: that's an illegal move, and the opponent's supposed to tell you,
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: and then you can take that move back. That's the
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: only move you can take back. So I think the
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: rule of thumb is once you take your hand off
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: of your piece. I comed, but that's how I always played. Yeah,
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: it seems legitimate. And also, now that I have not
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: played it and I'm a little older, I bet you that, uh,
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: it's better to try and do this stuff in your
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: head than move your pieces all around with your finger
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: on it, because I would imagine that would sort of
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: tip off your strategy somewhat. Um, I bet, like real
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: real pros do this in their head. They don't be like, go,
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: hmm right, no, my finger is still on it. And
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: then I think they played with the clock to don't
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: they probably? Yeah? Uh? And do you want to say
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: part part of strategy, you want to be thinking at
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: least three moves ahead anyway. Yeah, I imagine that's very tough.
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: Good luck with that beginner. Well, what else you said
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: that you can't move upon more than one squared a
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: time except for to start. Yeah, it's each pond's first
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: move can either be one or two. It's not necessarily
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: like at the beginning of the game. Um, oh, I
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: like this one. You know the words stalemate, Yeah, stalemate
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: is a chess term. It happens when, uh, if the
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: king isn't under attack, but any direction that you move
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: him in would place him in check so that there
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: there's no checkmate going or coming. It's just you just
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: happened to end up making a terrible move. That's a stalemate.
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: No one wins. Sorry, everybody goes home a loser. That's
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: no fun. All right, here's some other rules which I
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: did not know about. I have never played with these rules,
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: and they were really confusing to me. Yeah, I had
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: to do some supplemental research. Yeah, like YouTube videos and
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: stuff where Englishmen explained exactly what castling is. I think
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: I have a decent hand on it. But go ahead,
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: well castling in this article it says that it has
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: to be done at the beginning of the game. I
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: didn't see that anywhere else. I think it can only
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: be done once a game. Well, here's the deal I
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: got to the bottom of this. It can be done
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: as long as the king and the rook that you're
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: going to use to castle with has not moved yet, right, So,
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: as long as they are still in their original positions,
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: you can castle. Yeah, but that doesn't necessarily have to
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: happen at the beginning of the game. Um, but you
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: can move your king two pieces and then move the
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: rook that hasn't moved. That's your your castle right um,
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: to the last space the king past. So that means
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: basically what you're doing is you're moving your king over
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: and you're moving your rook next to it so that
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: your rook can protect your king more more better better. Yeah,
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: and you can only do this if they're nothing in
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: between the two. Um, and you can do it on
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: either side. You can do a on the king's side
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: or the queen's side, and it's the only move where
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: you can move two pieces at once and you don't
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: have to but it strategically, it's a very smart move
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: to castle anytime you can. Yeah, I still don't fully
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: get it or or the benefits. I know it's a
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: defensive move. I don't understand why you have to move
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: the king. Why not just move the rook next to
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: the king like that seems like that would be the
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: same thing. Yeah. I think someone will be able to
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: explain this in a dummies fashion via email and then
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: we're going to get a good one. But I think
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: that is what it amounts to. It's a defensive move
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: to make the rook put it in a better position
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: to protect the king. Um, there's pawn promotion. Never heard
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: of that. So there is pawn promotion where you said, like,
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: if the pawn just makes it all the way across
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: the board, your opposing rank either the first rank or
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: the eighth rank, depending on where your opponent is, you
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: could promote your pawn. I never heard of this. Most
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: people choose to promote their pond to queen, but in
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: certain instances I have no idea what they are, but
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: I just saw that in certain and instance is it's
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: better it might be better to promote it to something
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: else other than queen, and that would be a different
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: type of promotion. It's um like not a full proo promotion.
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: I can't have I can't remember what the name of
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: it is. But yeah, so typically you'd want to promote
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: it to the queen because that's the best piece. And
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: then you have two queens on the board. Yeah you
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: have if you still have your queen that is. Yeah.
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: And I I don't know, I've never heard of these,
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: so I don't know if they're just seldom used or
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: if it's just really rare that upon actually makes it
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: to the other side, because that would seem pretty rare
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: to me. I think they're fairly well used um or
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: frequently used sell rules. Okay, I know this last one
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: is not for fact, it's not a frequently used rule.
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: It's really obscure, so much so that the term m
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: poissance is used in other sports to describe little known
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: obscure rules. So it's become kind of a just a
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: catch all term. Just has really had a huge cultural
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: impact on the world, like an all sense of strange
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: ways huh, yeah, just stalemate. So on poissant means in passing.
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: It's pretty tricky. It allows a pond to capture an
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: opponent's pawn by doing nothing, though without landing on the square. No, So,
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: from what I understand this, this article is a little wrong.
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: Basically it allows it allows you to capture a pond
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: as if the pond had only moved one square, and
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: it can only be played after a two square advance. Confusing, Right,
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: So if a pawn moves two squares and happens to
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: pass an opposing pawn, yes, then the pond that moved
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: two squares to made the move is out. Yeah. It's
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: almost like it can attack from the side, I think,
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: but it's ultimately is attacking itself. The pond that's just
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: sitting there captures that pawn that made the move. Yes,
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: so you basically just made a bone head move because
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: you just lost your pawn. Yeah. It can only be
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: done too, if the pond comes from home base and
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: moves two squares, which can only happen once a game, Right,
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: I think, man can't can't we didn't We just say
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: a pawn can only move two squares in one like
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: at the beginning of a game each pond. Yeah, yeah,
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: so that could Yeah, that's that is obscure. Yeah, I've
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: never heard of it, and I don't. I think I
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: found that not many people use it. Nice, So those
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: are the rules, and yeah, um let's talk strategy, man,
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: Uh yeah, protect your king, capture the opponent's pieces, and
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: attack the king, attack him like you hate him. That's
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: not really strategy. I mean, that's just the basic like
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: what you're trying to do. There are like real strategies
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: that people have worked out with names. Yeah, they have
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: like names kings, gambit connected, the shuffle, the fork attack,
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: or the geto in Italian makes a kiss sound. Yeah
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: see and then a vowel makes a sound. Yeah. I
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: don't and I don't know much about these strategies, but um,
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: I know if you want to get better at jess
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: than you would do yourself a favor by trying to
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: learn one or two instead of just being like, well,
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: this guy goes this way and I don't like horses,
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: so I'm gonna attack the night, which is how I
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: play strategy. But what are some other basic strategies? Like
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: let's say you're a beginner, like you, Okay, what should
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: you try to do, I would be well served to
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: not rush. Um. I want to consider what your next
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: move would be after I made my move. But I
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: want to do all this with my arms folded across
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: my chest in my head, very quietly, so as not
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: to give away my strategy. Um, I want to castle
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: whenever possible, castle the king with the rook. Yeah, so
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: that must be like a real light common thing. Yeah,
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: I need. I feel like I missed out. You didn't castle.
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: That's how your brother beat. You had no idea. I'll
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: betty castle and you were like what did you just do?
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: And he's like never mind. Uh. Like we said, the
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: center of the board is where you would like to
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: control things. Um, you want to use all your pieces? Yeah,
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: move them around smartly though. Yeah. Those ponds, like we said,
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: are important. You gotta you gotta bring them out so
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: you can start attacking. Don't like it's not a good strategy.
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: Just be like, all right, I'm just gonna surround my
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: king with ponds and just leave them all there, right,
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: Like you want to get that clean out And like
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: we said, you can't jump, so you gotta move stuff
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: out of the way so everything can get out there.
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: And start warring exactly. Uh, like I said, you want
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: to plan three moves ahead. Um. And and as you
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: were saying, like, you want to get your stuff out
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: on the board, but you want to do it strategically.
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: You want to um, set yourself up, take your time,
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: don't attack too quickly because again that leaves your king overexposed. UM.
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: And you you never want to sacrifice a piece of
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: higher value for lesser value. Yeah, that's the big one.
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: I think that's the one. Even I think I remember
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: trying to employ not successfully, but uh yeah, no, you
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: don't wanna um. You don't want to lose a rook
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: to a pawn. You're just a sucker. And then probably
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: the most important strategy is to have fun and not
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: get discouraged, which I think I think that probably makes
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: a lot of sense. Like I don't think chess is
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: something you just come out and play well the first time.
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: No one in the history of the world since has
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: ever played chess or shadow Anger or anything. If you're
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: a beginner, I think you should just concentrate your first
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: few games on getting the moves correct and then you
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: can start working about everything else. But I mean, if
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: you want to get better very quickly. In addition to playing,
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: there's all sorts of websites, books, people you can talk to, UM,
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: and there's a lot of info out there to learn
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: how to play chess. Yeah, and now that I'm thinking
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: about it, I don't know that I've I've ever won
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: a single game of chess. I always play people better
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: than me. I think my record is like oh and
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: sixty three and I quit playing. Yeah, I can see that,
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: but I mean, you know, maybe play a little kid
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: if you're not that great. A kid who sucks at chess.
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: I was about to say, that's even more right now,
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: a kid that sucks at chess. Just don't gloat too
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: much because it's a kid. No, I'd glowed. So that's
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: everything there is to know about chess. Do you got
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: anything else? I got nothing else? Um. If you want
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: to learn more about chess and see a pretty nifty
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: little flash animation, UM, you can type in C H E. S.
• 40:52
  Speaker 1: S into search bart how stiff works dot com and
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: it will bring up this article. And since I said
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: search bar, it means it's time for listener mail. And
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna call this Maori love. And like we said,
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: the Kiwi's Love a little light shining on them, and
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: so we have heard back from them in spades. Yeah.
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: Have you ever seen Bad Taste? Oh no, I don't
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: think so, because Peter Jackson's first movie. Yeah, I never
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: saw that one. I saw the other one he did,
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: Um Dead Alive I saw that one too. Yeah, I
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: didn't see Bad Taste. I like Bad Taste Boy the Hobbit.
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: I liked that Alive though, two in in the just
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: the schlockiest way you can like something. Sure. Yeah, I
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: didn't see The Hobbit, but this next Hobbit sequel in
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: the never ending parade of Hobbit movies, actually looks kind
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: of interesting. Yeah. I didn't see all of The Hobbit.
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: I watched some of it the other night and I
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: just couldn't do it. Have you ever heard of Rob Delaney,
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: the Twitter guy? He had this tweet he was like, um,
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: it was in all caps. He goes, I'm in the
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: Hobbit right now. It's eight and a half hours long.
• 41:53
  Speaker 1: They won't let anybody leave, please send, and then like
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: it just runts down and heavenly creatures. Did you ever
• 41:59
  Speaker 1: see that? No, man, that was really good. That was
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: the first time I had seen Kate Winslet in a movie,
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: really good movie. Al Right, enough about Peter Jackson, onto
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: the Maori. I thought you guys, thought it'd send you
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: a quick email that sincerely congratulate you and how you
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: handled the Maori podcast production. Pronunciation of Maori words and
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: phrases uses a style of linguistic that is totally different
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: to most languages. See I don't feel so bad now
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: like the pronounced yeah. Well, we're getting to that. As
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: a twenty year old kily I often mispronounced Maori words myself,
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: and due to the nature of trying to put a
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: largely oral language into words, spelling and pronunciation often changed
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: through the years. Still, why would you choose W for
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: F sound? I thought I'd give you some Maori words
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: and easy up their pronunciation for you guys. So that
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: white white tangy, he said, The treaty um is pronounced
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: why tangy? What's is the W sound? Is a W
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: sound in that one? Yeah, that's what he says. He
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: said this as though you're questioning someone's recipe for salsa.
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: That's awesome. Uh. People in New Zealand know about salsa.
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: That's weird. Um uh a r t Aura or Land
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: of the Long White Cloud is pronounced alta roa al
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: ta roa Okay, and that's that was that's New Zealand.
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: It's the Maori word for New Zealand, right, I think
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: so words that begin with the w h prefects you
• 43:31
  Speaker 1: were talking about are almost always pronounced as an F sound,
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: So waka papa sounds more like papa, which sounds weird
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: to us and even dirty. But it's not that sounds
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: pronounced but that's how the Maori pronounced the word that
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: we butchered all over our episode, basically, yeah, exactly. Or
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: the town of wanga Nui is pronounced funga nui. Yeah,
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: it's so weird and hard to get used too. But
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: one of my favorite guys is a small town of
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: but hold hold on, it is weird. It's weird to us,
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: and like the the fuka papa word sounds hilarious, especially
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: if you're in sixth grade or whatever. Exactly, But I
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: mean this is again, that's how it's pronounced in Maori,
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: and therefore, if you're saying a Maori word, you can't
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: really just change the pronunciation because based on your own west.
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: So here's this final one is the small town of Wakika,
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: come out. Kyle is pronounced way kick a muko if
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: you know the correct pronunciation the second time. Why did
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: you what? Well? I mean I was just reading it
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: as if I was oh, which I am, like basically
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: during our Maori episode. Again, I'm really surprised that we
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: got a lot of praise for this one. Yeah. I
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: think that they're delighted that we talked about them and
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: probably got a good laugh because no one can pronounce
• 44:59
  Speaker 1: these words. Yeah, somebody wrote in and said they faced
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: palm like times. Yeah, but they probably laughed about it
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: on the whole though. Guys that wouldn't worry about offending
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: Kiwi's too much. We're a small nation and we're usually
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: just happy if we find out people in other countries. No,
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: we exists as a separate entity. Plus in Australia they
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: produced Play of the Concords, which is a pretty big
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: that's a big production. Thanks again, that's from Tom. Thanks Tom.
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: How would you say Tom and Kiwi? No, it's actually TLM,
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: not the weird t h o M. Yeah, like Tom York. Yeah,
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: that's he dealing with Yorky. Yeah, that's what I call him. Uh,
• 45:37
  Speaker 1: he's good though he's great. Um, well, thank you very much, Tom.
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: We appreciate that, and thank you to everybody who wrote
• 45:45
  Speaker 1: in to say way to go on, Maori, we were
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: blown away. I'm glad to hear from you guys down there. Um,
• 45:51
  Speaker 1: we're up there, depending on what direction you're traveling. UM,
• 45:55
  Speaker 1: if you want to let us know that we did
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: so so or really great or not that great on
• 46:01
  Speaker 1: any episode, or if you have any great explanations on
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: anything about chess, any tips, any tricks, any strategy, we'd
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: love to share it with everybody. Basic strategies, right, we'll
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: get too weird with the King scambit. Yes, well, um,
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: but I'll bet that's like a totally basic strategy. Um.
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: You can tweet to us at s Y s K podcast.
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: You can join us on Facebook dot com, slash Stuff
• 46:23
  Speaker 1: you Should Know. You can send us an email to
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: Stuff Podcast at Discovery dot com and all as always,
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: you can join us at our home on the web,
• 46:31
  Speaker 1: Stuff you Should Know dot com for more on this
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: and thousands of other topics. Is it how Stuff Works
• 46:41
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• 46:51
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