1: the real psychology of chess
Podcast ep 1, separated tracks
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Julia: [00:00:00] Are you obsessed with chess, but also kind of fun at parties?
JJ: Do you keep your opening prep on your bedside table right next to your feelings, journal
Julia: Welcome to the chess feels podcast. The only chess podcast dedicated to the social and psychological aspects of this game. We know, and love
JJ: and hate tune in every week to join me professional chess teacher in amateur feelings have her JJ Lang
Julia: And me Professional therapist and amateur checkmate finder, Julia.
JJ: as we dive into our shared love for the game and attempt to answer the most burning question for every chest obsessive. Why are we like
this?
audioJuliaRios11081875916: So should we have a little intro that we do at the beginning of every podcast?
audioJJLang21081875916: I mean, everyone knows who we are though. Who would be here that doesn't know why they're here, right?
audioJuliaRios11081875916: Literally, nobody knows who I am. Everybody knows who you are.
audioJJLang21081875916: ~yeah, but we're family. , okay. Like why do we~
~need an intro? ~
audioJuliaRios11081875916: ~ ~ I introduced you and you introduced me
audioJJLang21081875916: No, I'm not giving you that power. Next idea.
audioJuliaRios11081875916: No, I really
do want that power though. What's the
worst I can say about, you
audioJJLang21081875916: Let's find out. Introduce me
audioJuliaRios11081875916: know, you go first.
audioJJLang21081875916: and with the white pieces unrated
from Michigan,
audioJuliaRios11081875916: don't, you dare.
audioJJLang21081875916: you're not unrated either. Julia is
soon to be PhD
audioJuliaRios11081875916: Oh my God. Are you going to jinx me like that?
audioJJLang21081875916: SI is this really like a good intro?
audioJuliaRios11081875916: Terrible.
audioJJLang21081875916: Do you want this at the start of every episode?
audioJuliaRios11081875916: Why would it be like, this is JJ. I'm bad at chess, but secretly I'm sick. Sling. I just give you a new nickname every
time Today. You're going to be like JJ, the weapon
audioJJLang21081875916: Ooh, I like that.
audioJuliaRios11081875916: You like
audioJJLang21081875916: J pawn Reyes.
audioJuliaRios11081875916: Oh my God. Okay. I haven't used this new username because I couldn't log in because I forgot to verify it in the email, but someone did ask me no, actually I can't lie. They did not ask me. This was unprompted. I did tell someone if they wanted to challenge me to, to reach me at DTF pawns and they thought it was still funny.
And I really wanted to take credit for it, but I simply could not. They were like, that's hilarious. I was like, yeah, this guy made it up.
I don't know him. I barely know him.
audioJJLang21081875916: We
are
a family.
audioJuliaRios11081875916: but
audioJJLang21081875916: something in there
is probably like a good, like attempt to have an intro that didn't work. so that's great.
audioJuliaRios11081875916: We're going to workshop, but every week it'll get better.
Your nickname is little, get so cute.
audioJJLang21081875916: Did I tell you that, I had a friend in high school who called me age against. It's really good. Yeah. So you have your work cut out for you
audioJuliaRios11081875916: Oh, why didn't I think of that. Damn it. That's a really good
audioJJLang21081875916: yeah.
audioJuliaRios11081875916: I'm not, I'm not great with the puns. I feel like you're really sharp. You, you have some really good tonnes. Those are not my
audioJJLang21081875916: Yeah.
Your strengths are , the, the callback and like the combination and the subtle deviation, you're very, forum oriented.
audioJuliaRios11081875916: Yeah. Yeah. The problem though, is that I think other people don't remember all these details, so
sometimes I'll like, make a joke. And
audioJJLang21081875916: You just sound really weird. Yeah.
audioJuliaRios11081875916: Yeah. I'm like, no, no. This was something that you said eight minutes ago. This was your joke.
And then, um, no, I don't even try to explain myself. I usually just carry on. In my head, like this is not my fault.
audioJJLang21081875916: I mean, to be fair. The only reason I remember things is either to prove I'm right. Or to make jokes about them.
audioJuliaRios11081875916: Hmm. That's true. That's true. That's why we are a great duo because I have absolutely no qualms with admitting when you're right. Which you frequently
audioJJLang21081875916: Thank you for saying that. And I've been saying for months that we should start a podcast about chess [00:04:00] and that it has to be us. And it has to be about who we are and what we bring to the table talking about chess. it's been like pulling teeth to get Julia here
audioJuliaRios11081875916: That is wildly
untrue.,
audioJJLang21081875916: it was easy to get you here. It was just hard to get you to , want to do the podcast because you were just like, why would anyone want to listen to us talk?
audioJuliaRios11081875916: You did have to convince me that anyone would want to hear my voice for more than three minutes.
audioJJLang21081875916: But I think, that there's something that we can do here that isn't, you know, just talking about chess because , I have been teaching chess for a while and playing chess for a long time, but something that I like about chess is a lot more about the kind of.
Phenomena of chess as like this obsession, this cultural thing, this thing that seems to there's so many of us who are like this, and I don't know why we're like this. And you as someone with a psychology background and career are , actually well-equipped to help us figure out why we're like this.
And , I'm way more interested in talking about that than like my opening repertoire.
audioJuliaRios11081875916: Right. I know there there are several really great podcasts kind of covering, especially the adult
improvement stuff.
audioJJLang21081875916: They're They're good. They're great. They're good.
audioJuliaRios11081875916: Uh, I think they're spectacular. So if anyone who's listening, just remember, Julia is nice. JJ is terrible. but yeah, I think also that was kind of what sparked this was. I've heard many podcasts, I think even your own interview with Ben Johnson on perpetual chess, where this idea about , the psychology of chess has come up, people love that phrase but then no one ever actually talks about the psychology of chess.
So, as a clinical psychologist, We should actually talk about it, um, rather than kind of using these hand-wavy terms to say it's sort of this nebulous thing that we don't really get, but I know that I'm bad at X, Y, Z, whatever area of chess, my timing, or my confidence, and I know that feels psychological, but I don't know what that means.
And I don't know how to talk about
it.
audioJJLang21081875916: Yeah, I was going to ask you, first of all, besides like, oh God, here we go again. What do you think? you, when you hear people say psychology of chess, not just, what do you think psychologists means? Like, what do you think they're trying to get to when they're saying that they're interested in psychology of chess,
audioJuliaRios11081875916: I almost think it comes down to anything that is not the logic, the tactics of chess. It's like, if I can study it, someone can put this in a video, in a book for me, and I can understand. How this operates on a chess board, then it's chess. But as soon as it's anything else, as soon as it gets into any kind of realm that is cognitive or emotional, all of a sudden it's like, well, that's the psychology of chess and yeah, I do need to work
on it,
audioJJLang21081875916: But, but famously, no one knows where psychology is even located. Like what Oregon is responsible for that, so,
audioJuliaRios11081875916: we should do a Twitter poll for
that.
audioJJLang21081875916: oh yeah. I'll save my more crude
comments on that.
audioJuliaRios11081875916: No, don't,
audioJJLang21081875916: Do you know? Like that whole, like the Chrissy, like Chrissy Tiegen, just like tweeted pee is stored in the balls.
audioJuliaRios11081875916: that is literally the only thing I could think of JJ
audioJJLang21081875916: Okay, cool.
audioJuliaRios11081875916: but I was like, but now I just sound immature. No, this is a real
audioJJLang21081875916: was the thing. Okay. Wow. I'm really glad. That was actually the setup.
audioJuliaRios11081875916: I'm Not even convinced that chess would be stored in the balls.
audioJJLang21081875916: I was going to say chess is like stored in like my toenails and I'm just always clipping it
off and they're coming back.
but, before whatever that was happened, I liked the point that you were saying of how psychology is kind of being used as this catch all term of like. obscuring, what has actually there, almost like separating it from chess and that was the point you made, like there's chess and then there's the other stuff. And like that separation also seems kind of artificial, right?
audioJuliaRios11081875916: people do this literally all the time. , and especially with emotions, I think there's something about emotion that people like a lot of distance from, especially men.
But when we're talking about psychology, when we're talking about the nervous system, we're talking [00:08:00] about what's happening in the brain, everything is interconnected. So if you think that your thoughts and your emotions are not, deeply intertwined, you probably haven't done any CBT, which is fine. But it's just an interesting thing to me. I think chess kind of makes it a bigger thing where it's all of psychology is kind of over here, but maybe even, especially those emotion, parts of it, which do impact our thinking, our planning, our judgements, that kind of thing.
But. It's also I think easier to say, oh, you know, I didn't see the tactic. those cognitive parts of psychology, I think are more palatable, but the emotional stuff, this is just in general effect that I see.
audioJJLang21081875916: I think that even of the people who seem to get on some level about like, we are fundamentally emotional creatures. And so obviously our emotions are going to tie into any sort of more cognitive thing we're trying to do.
I think people, a lot people solve you that as a weakness or something to kind of optimize a way, it's like, I understand that like emotions factor into my chest and that's what I'm trying to work on. and there's probably like ways to work on it.
But I think a lot of people assume working on it is to like, get the feelings out of the brain, which is like such a weird
goal.
audioJuliaRios11081875916: Yeah, I totally agree with that. There's this beautiful analogy that I use with my therapy clients sometimes, which is, you know, emotions do have a big impact and we can think of emotion does this power horse. And if you're, if you're sitting on a horse and it's running away with you, if you let your emotions run away with
audioJJLang21081875916: Am I the emotions or the horse.
audioJuliaRios11081875916: you're the horse, but like just
the bottom half.
audioJJLang21081875916: Gotcha. So, okay. even in the
analogy, I'm a bottom.
audioJuliaRios11081875916: Um, yeah, this is a realistic analysis. But If you let the horse, run away in any direction that they might even want to go, that's not the direction you want to go. You're in trouble. You're kind of in deep shit. But the great thing is you're sitting on top of the horse and if you know how to ride a horse, you can point the horse in the direction you want to go.
You can actually get there a lot faster than if you didn't have a horse. and I think that really quick list on people and I think emotions are precisely the same. They can be really powerful motivators. I think that's what keeps us in love with chess. I think that's what makes us want to keep coming back.
And if you know how to point them in the right direction, it's a really
useful tool.
audioJJLang21081875916: absolutely. And I, and as you're saying that, I'm thinking about how some of the games that I've played that I've been the most proud of are the ones where I was the most emotionally
---
audioJJLang21081875916: swept up in them. and maybe it was like the emotion wasn't just fear or panic, but even, sometimes maybe it was right, ~like~
~being so, ~
audioJuliaRios11081875916: ~emotion. ~
audioJJLang21081875916: ~um, I mean probably~
~is it ~
audioJuliaRios11081875916: ~I think, I think it can be. And again, I don't know how important this conversation is, but~ I think something that we miss in these conversations is almost the difference between the arousal of an emotion and the valence. So what I mean, when I say that is when we experience any of those internal emotional states, first, they're going to have a level of arousal.
A state of high arousal could be something like excitement, fear, anger, low arousal. You might feel lethargic, apathetic. You can think about what that range looks like. But the valence is really where we start to bring in more of that categorical. Component to how we think about emotion. So you can have high arousal and have a positive valence or a negative valence.
So we might say, oh, I'm really excited. We might also say, oh, I'm really scared. And it actually could be a really similar feeling. So when we think about fear, we're thinking about that high state of arousal, that anxiety, that sympathetic nervous response. Okay. We can call that fear, but If we do some of that labeling, it could look really different. And again, one thing I do with my clients when they're having a lot of fear and anxiety around something that's really important to them. Like what you just described, JJ, those exact chess games where you felt the most emotionally slept away.
It's almost like what if you just said to yourself, I'm really excited. It sounds so lame. But Language is powerful and it totally
changes
audioJJLang21081875916: no, that's,
that's what I was going to say
is that, even some of the ones where, like I remember being in fearful states, it's. to be able to like, pause them, like, wait a minute. The fact that I'm afraid means at some level, I don't see [00:12:00] exactly how things have gone wrong or going to go wrong.
Right. Like if I see the, if I see the checkmate in two, I'm not fearful, I'm disappointed. I'm defeated.
audioJuliaRios11081875916: totally. I love that.
audioJJLang21081875916: and
so to kind of be like, okay, cool. Like, yes, there's a problem here, but obviously there's a problem here. I am terrible at this game. but the fact that it's not clear where it's going is like, this is actually really fun.
Like I'm very invested in this problem to solve or like in the state of things, there's still a lot that's undecided I totally resonate with that. And I think like kind of stepping back. It would be really fun to have more chess people talk this way.
an idea Amelia had once was like, what if you like, directed a tournament? And then like after each game straight up gave everyone a feelings wheel
to like, see where they are, where they were during the game, just as a sort of way to check in with themselves. And maybe even something to talk to their opponent about as well of like, of how they're feeling where instead of having this kind of stoic ideal of I am unfeeling, I'm just playing moves.
I am stock fish on level one, but.
audioJuliaRios11081875916: And, you know, I feel like there are some therapy approaches that would say that is appropriate at times, DVT is big on this. They call it why is mine, where we have our logical mind and our emotional minds. and it really is about kind of figuring out when you want to center each of those.
Um, so the why is nine can tap into both. so we don't want to be totally unfeeling, especially when our emotions. Let's say you're at a wedding you're dancing, you're falling in love. There's all these times where we want to be swept away in our emotions. You're watching a movie. You want to feel invested.
You don't want to be thinking about it from this very pragmatic lens of okay, I'm dancing. Let's say it goes here. Right. But goes here. and then there's gonna be times where you want to be almost only logically minded, the example they always give. And I don't know how much I love this, but let's say you're taking an exam, you're taking the MCAT, whatever.
but then for most of your life, you want this lies mine, that kind of taps into both of those things. And I wonder where chess would kind of fall in that. I wonder if there are times where it would be helpful to be able to do emotional regulation and say I'm in a really high state of arousal, that's not helping, but it's really interesting because also high states of arousal can actually make people perform better at things that they're really good at.
So
maybe it's like a know thyself. I'm not
sure.
JJ Lang: Oh, I think you're onto something. I had some good thoughts about that. So I'm not sure that it's been shared the dumb one instead, which is, I actually think that different kinds of chess games, even different kinds of openings might themselves lend to different sorts of states where like incredibly tactical.
Open board, lots of pieces can capture each other and you have to be very precise that might actually really benefit from the kind of logical mind. But it also might benefit from, you know, having the kind of proper feeling for the position, but sometimes the feeling of the general sort of, oh, this looks like a good time for an attack.
It's like, no, you have to calculate right now.
audioJJLang21081875916: But then there might be other more like, Close board. None of the pieces are touching there. Aren't a whole lot of variations you have to calculate where like that kind of logical mind, isn't going to get you very far, but like the more you're able to just be swept up in a certain sort of direction or re rerouting or some sort of more poetic thing can really take you in a much, much different direction.
And then I think something that's so frustrating, this was the real thought is that throughout the game, it really feels like we're switching between what you're calling this wise mind versus the logical mind versus like the feeling. And sometimes it's like, you really need to let the feeling sweep you away, but then if you forget to calculate something you're fucked and other times it's like, you really need to calculate.
And then when calculation runs out, you need the feeling back.
audioJuliaRios11081875916: This really made me think of something. I think that this is an example. where everyone can start to realize how much that emotional part of their thinking creeps into their chest play. Everyone has been there, you're playing a game of chess and you miss a tactic or you blunder a piece and you just want to quit.
Right. You're like, oh, I just want to resign. Or I'm just not, I'm not into this anymore. And you [00:16:00] stop looking for the best move or maybe you start playing more aggressively, like, okay, well now I'm going to make a sacrifice. Now I need to make up for it. The game has already lost. If you were able to really tap into just that logical cognitive part of your mindset, what would you do differently?
And I've had games like that I had one recently I almost tweeted about it. Cause it was so funny to me, but I, I blundered my queen. And usually when I do that, sometimes I'll literally just resigned. It's like, I'd rather just start over. But for some reason on this day, Oh then.
Well, let's just see if I can crawl my way back. If I have a good wiggle, I'll send it to JJ It was such a funny experience. I played it totally differently then. Would have even 10 minutes before that. And I came back and I won the game and it was so funny to me, like, why don't I just always do this? after that, I was actually very moved by my incredible, chest prowess, if you will, that for, I think, you know, the rest of that time that I was sitting playing chess, I was like, okay, I'm not going to resign any of my games, but I'm also going to just try to play like really kind of, solidly, even when I feel like I'm losing. And it was a totally different experience. I actually won a lot of games that I probably would have just resigned. It was so funny to me.~ I had this one physician today. This is off the record. Well, it doesn't have to be, but I'm thinking about it kind of off the record.~
~I had this one position where my opponent had. Oh yeah. I already told you this. My opponent literally had.~
~In one and they missed it and then they missed it again. And then when they missed it, I guess they blundered. So I had to meet in two and I took it, but it's so funny because I think if I, if I hadn't also missed the main one, if I had seen it, I might have just been like resign, um, there.~
And I think who has not experienced that. And so if you can learn to, to kind of regulate that response, I think that people will
play better chess.
audioJJLang21081875916: I agree with that. and I think that's cool. And I'm looking forward to you teaching me how to do that.
audioJuliaRios11081875916: I'm going to teach you emotional regulation.
audioJJLang21081875916: okay.
audioJuliaRios11081875916: And the other piece of that puzzle is distress tolerance, right? I used to work with
children and
families. These are
like, the most basic skills.
audioJJLang21081875916: I play the Benoni and the bank, like my distress tolerance is, is high. It's not as fine. I
audioJuliaRios11081875916: Okay, JJ, I have not seen you play the bingo in a very long time.
audioJJLang21081875916: Well, that's because my distress tolerance hasn't been tested recently.
audioJuliaRios11081875916: We need, we need more bingo. This podcast is actually sponsored by the bank.
Go
audioJJLang21081875916: Big bank, uh, is bankrolling.
audioJuliaRios11081875916: big Benko Gambit is really up to no good, but we needed the cash influx. So here we
are.
audioJJLang21081875916: Yeah. I mean, like, I was really proud of us for turning down req Seinfeld's generous offer.
audioJuliaRios11081875916: Oh, we were supposed to turn that down. I think I emailed back. Yes.
audioJJLang21081875916: Oh man. Because I mean, his generous offer was just like a portrait of him. So, like, I hope it's shipping to you.
audioJuliaRios11081875916: No, absolutely not. It's already hanging up in your house. I
talked to Amelia.
audioJJLang21081875916: We're putting the world's tallest chess piece in our backyard.
audioJuliaRios11081875916: Yeah. Is that
true?
audioJJLang21081875916: No, but they they'll like new chest life magazine was talking about how, when Rex opened the St. Louis chess club, they wanted to have the world's tallest chess piece, and then someone else built a taller chest piece. And so they made theirs taller
audioJuliaRios11081875916: This isn't really that hard to do as to, this is my problem. I have the opposite of imposter syndrome. This is actually, one of Michael's favorite jokes about me. I don't talk about this a lot because I mean academia. And when you are in a PhD program, everyone always talks about imposter syndrome a lot.
Um, I just don't have that. I really don't. So as soon as you're like, will you just build a tell chest face? I'm like, oh, I could do that. I could build a taller Chesapeake then the St. Louis chess club. You just make
it high.
audioJJLang21081875916: Right. I'm with you on something like building a chest piece. It's like, yeah. How hard can that be? But I want to ask you a question about imposter syndrome.
Julia Rios: Oh, I would love, love, love to chat about this.
JJ Lang: You said that you usually don't have it. Do you feel like when it comes to chess or talking about chess, you haven't been playing a long time. So how do you feel about that?
Julia Rios: Yeah, it's such a good question. And I, I don't feel like I necessarily have imposter syndrome. I think I just have an accurate read on how bad I am at chess.
And I think it's also okay to say, like, I'm not that good at something I'm actually not qualified to do a task and it's not always imposter syndrome. Sometimes we're just not good at
JJ Lang: things. I mean, I think something that's nice about [00:20:00] that is, you know, it's not even good joke. It's not imposter syndrome.
I'm just an imposter. It's. Um, postering anything.
Julia Rios: Exactly. I'm not trying to come into this space and be like, I am incredible at chess. I've been playing my whole life and I'm going to teach you how to also be good at chess. But I do love chess a lot. I mean, I really love it. And I feel like that is what brings everyone in the chess community together.
Right. We're all obsessed with this. But it was like kind of ruining our lives, which we can also
JJ Lang: talk about. Oh my God. Yeah. I think I love when people are getting into chess and are tweeting early on about how much joy it's bringing them. And it's just, you know, I pull out my popcorn and it's almost more just like finally welcome.
You've arrived now that you understand what chess truly is, you can. I will be happy for your accomplishments, but it's only once you want to commiserate that you are truly in the club. Why is that? By the way that we both love doing this to ourselves, but also love commiserating about it. Does it really make, even make us feel better to have people to commiserate with it?
Does.
Julia Rios: Yeah. Being validated feels good.
JJ Lang: Yeah. Okay. No, I get that about actual problems, right? If I'm having a real problem, I want people to validate me, but if I'm just inflicting chest suffering on myself, It's a real problem. My chest is a real problem. I agree with that.
Julia Rios: Whenever I see your game, like, wow.
JJ has a lot of problems.
JJ Lang: Yeah. And this is something too. I was curious when I was asking you about imposter syndrome, because when I started it. Teaching as a strong amateur, but extremely amateur player. I definitely had some imposter syndrome as well because you know, a lot of grandmasters and other strong title players will supplement whatever tournament income or their entire income is from teaching.
I'm trying to do it. And these people would wipe the floor with me, who am I to call myself a coach? And I'm not sure if imposter syndrome was the right word for it, but I think, I think something else. And this is kind of talking about the difference between fear or just excitement is if anything that motivated me to figure out what is it about me and my interest in chess and my love for your chest, that can make me a good coach.
And that's something that I think some strong players struggle with. I am very good at chess. And so you should pay me to help you be better at chess. What do you do? And I think that for some people, for a lot of people, I think they have incredibly good answers, but for some people I'm not sure how much they've thought about what is it that makes me qualified to teach.
Cause you'll see this in anything where like some of the best actors, aren't always the best teachers.
Julia Rios: Well, of course. Yeah. And what is my pedagogy? I feel so strongly about this. And especially as someone coming into chest, kind of at that advanced beginner level where I wasn't totally new to chest.
Really actually studied chess before I met you really?
JJ Lang: Sorry.
Julia Rios: Yeah, it did. It has been ruining my life since 1991. When we met at the hospital, we were born in the same hospital on the same
JJ Lang: day, five months apart, you have a lot of problems had to keep you there.
Julia Rios: Nope. You were born first. You were the one with five months of problems.
You had so many problems. Me and your parents could have exchanged the luck. I was like, oh God. And they were like, yeah, but they did keep you and me were actually step siblings with the same parents. Yeah. If your step siblings, you were raised in the same home
JJ Lang: but I thought you were my grandmother.
Julia Rios: ~First of all, don't mis-gender me ever again, JJ. Um, definitely your ~
JJ Lang: ~grandfather. I don't like that. You implied that grandmother is agenda. Yeah. ~
Julia Rios: Okay. Check, meet JJ. You're totally right. And I can see the point to you back to what we were saying. Who makes the best teacher for someone at that beginner level?
Let's say you're coming in and you're at a 1400. Is it the person with the most chest knowledge in their brain? Or is it the person who's the best teacher And who makes the best teacher, someone who knows how to teach. And you have such an incredible philosophy. You have such an incredible pedagogy, the way that you approach teaching is so impressive.
[00:24:00] And I've seen you teach other people. You've taught me. I don't know, I feel very strongly about this. Will I learn more from data on era did ski? Absolutely. He's also a better teacher than, you know, but I learned more from a GM. Do they have more knowledge in their brain? Possibly can a transfer that knowledge to me in a way where I can actually.
Honestly, probably
JJ Lang: not sometimes, but probably not. And I mean, yeah, just to be clear, I think there's lots of incredibly strong chess players who have dedicated themselves to becoming excellent teachers as well. And I'm not trained to knock those people. It's more of the people who kind of assume I know this, therefore I can teach it.
That is itself like a dangerous thing. And so it was this process for me of going through this opposite of a do I know it well enough to teach it and being like, wait a minute, these are to a certain degree, separate skills. And I think something else that's super interesting and pedagogy, and it's related to, you'll probably see this a lot in sports.
You see this definitely in academia where a lot of people who are very good at what they do, just teach the way they were learned, the way that they were taught and the way they were learned. I'm going to edit out me saying that and not using that.
Julia Rios: Please, please. Don't do that.
JJ Lang: I will not do that.
I'm not going to edit shit, but then what's so funny is a lot of people also. Have a lot of pain and suffering and how they were taught, whether it be just because their teaching was bad or because, you know, if they had to solve really hard problems or they were ran ragged or their advisors were kind of abusive, they're just like, well, I came out okay.
And almost as a way to kind of justify being treated poorly, they just do the same. And so you ha you see this thing where it's just, there's this kind of like, especially in chest teaching this very cold, cruel. You solve, you get wrong, you feel bad. Um, so common from people who outside of chess seem incredibly lovely.
And it's just, oh, you were taught that you were taught this way by someone who is taught this way by someone who was taught this way. That's that? That's your pedagogy. Unreflectively and that's just so
Julia Rios: sad. How would you describe the way you were taught chest? JJ? When did you start and what was that experience like for you?
It was super
JJ Lang: weird. I had a teacher in middle school who was a very strong player around 2000 strength and he had a chess club and I kind of at the time felt like, because I knew people who had private lessons and I didn't that I didn't really have a teacher, but he was somebody who was, um, very classically well versed in chess.
And they realized later how many classic games he will show us every week. There are these little lessons and there's so much stuff. And also something about him that I think was really. Besides like how much work Martin Roper, if you're listening, if you're out there besides drive us hours to tournament's all over with Carolina was, um, he himself was a, he was an English teacher.
He was not a science person. And so the, the games came with stories. The games came with, um, color, I mean, and probably more than when he taught literature, when he taught English to us.
Julia Rios: Can you, I'm going to put you on this about today. Can you name one book that you read and you learned in his class?
JJ Lang: I know.
Well, I know it's a play, not a book, but I know that we did Midsummer night's dream because my group acted out a scene and we decided to all do it again.
Julia Rios: He sounds like a really, he sounds like a really good English teacher
JJ Lang: as well. No, he didn't like decide this, our group decided this and didn't tell him, and we just showed up like this,
Julia Rios: but he gave you, he gave you the freedom and a
JJ Lang: presumably. Well, he gave me an a, because we won states that year, but, um,
Julia Rios: oh yeah, I'll just slip in that little black.
So you're like when I was the captain of the team and we won states.
JJ Lang: But we Wednesdays, is there a captain? I was just getting, I'm not sure. I don't, I wasn't, I definitely wasn't the best player on the team in middle school,
Julia Rios: the captain of this podcast.
JJ Lang: That's definitely true. Um, I'm whichever one goes down with the [00:28:00] ship.
Is that the Admiral? I think that's also the captain. Okay. Then that's even better.
Julia Rios: I'll be the captain and you can immediate assistance to the captain.
JJ Lang: That's
Julia Rios: okay. Uh, please continue telling me about your
JJ Lang: teeth. Yeah, no, I was just thinking about how it was just this very colorful thing where it was, it's never memorization based.
It was never boring. And I think it was very special to have somebody who had so much knowledge. It was very invested in seeing how it fit together in this way. Like you said, that had a narrative. And I think that's very much informed the way I like to think about just because as hard as it is to turn a board game into something that has a narrative, once you get there and start doing that, it's much easier to keep track of the narrative than it is to keep track of a bunch of variations.
I love that. And that's, and that's something that I think it's also just more fun and it's also makes it easier to lose because it can still be very interesting in a way that if you're only there for the results, half your games, they're just going to make you sad. But I don't know, tragedies rule. So
Julia Rios: yeah, I love that.
And I think there's also. Uh, I feel like this is not something that people wouldn't necessarily think of first when they say, what am I looking for in a mentor, a chess coach, but someone who so clearly loves chess. That's so contagious when someone else is excited about it. And I feel like you and I are very similar in that way.
We both love a good game of chess, lights us up
JJ Lang: to get to a degree that like often upsets those around. Yeah.
Julia Rios: I can't even think of anyone.
JJ Lang: Yeah. That's gonna be, it's gonna be a future conversations. It's like a chess chess as the other woman in the relationship.
Julia Rios: Yeah. But I'm actually really glad that Michael thinks that chess at large is kind of the other woman when it's really just Daniel narrowed scale, but I'm willing to let him think if the whole community and the game is.
JJ Lang: Absolutely. Um, Daniel Nitsky, if you are listening, this is going to be a segment we have every week where we invite Daniel onto the podcast and out to dinner with Julia,
Julia Rios: we would love to interview you about your experience, you know, learning and playing chess.
And also if you're ever in Ann Arbor, I will buy.
JJ Lang: To be clear that offer is only good for your . Yes,
Julia Rios: absolutely. Where were we? Oh yeah, chest causing problems.
JJ Lang: Yeah. So we talked about psychology and what that means, which by the way, it was also my trap to get you to talk about your credentials for doing this podcast.
Julia Rios: I didn't
JJ Lang: get any credentials or just like you showed your chops maybe is like what I was looking for and the things you said that.
Julia Rios: Oh, yeah, but our discussion with nothing. It is my favorite thing to talk about. I really could talk about this for as many hours as you want at link. So whenever people ask me, what's your research, I really have to do a deep pause and ask myself, what is this person really asking though?
This person wants to hear about my recent. Or are they being nice to me, but I'm glad I got to chat about it a little bit. I'm looking forward to deeper conversation. And
JJ Lang: as a chess player, your ability to judge social cues is one of your strongest.
Julia Rios: Is that something that just layers are notoriously not
JJ Lang: good at no chess players are known for their social grace and acumen.
That's why they tend to gather in silent rooms.
Julia Rios: The, I didn't grow up playing chess, so everyone I know who plays chess. They're my favorite.
JJ Lang: You've been on the internet though,
Julia Rios: let me know, but I don't know how good their social prowess is. The internet. You can hide that. Okay. Some people are not hiding
JJ Lang: that.
I need to see the empirical research on that.
Julia Rios: Can you tell how socially awkward someone would be in person by how they are on the internet? I see. Like I would come off as relatively awkward. I feel like my worst habit is that I [00:32:00] I'll make like an inside joke.
I'll say something that I know only you will understand, but on someone else's post and that's actually, that's kind of socially awkward. I should.
JJ Lang: It is. That reminds me of my college radio station. We like to play a lot of like difficult or abrasive music. And there is a sign in the control room that just said help the listeners get what's coming to them.
And that's kind of how Twitter too, where it's like, no one made you be here, but I'm not going to cater to you just because of.
Julia Rios: Yeah. And, and sometimes I feel like I step in muddy water. I remember it. I made some joke to you about like, I hate the, of that that goes even worse than someone's like, oh, like, this is what the Banco is.
I had to backtrack and say, oh no, like I play the big, do I love the big girl? I'm just making fun of JJ.
JJ Lang: So yeah. I mean, it's wild that people use Twitter and don't realize that its entire purpose is to make fun of me basically. How. We're giving away too many of our, what are your secrets? We need to save some of this for when we have Nigel short Garry, Kasparov and Nigel Davies on for the Twitter episode.
Julia Rios: Oh, I can't wait for that. And they all said yes already, right?
JJ Lang: Um, no, I'm not going to make that joke. Yes. They all said yes.
You already know the joke.
I'm not going to make the joke. It's like, why, why would I make a mess when I'm the one who has to clean it up?
Julia Rios: I love it when you clean up your own messes. Okay. So I was gonna say, I feel like this is a really good first recording for us, but then I had to filter myself because I know you didn't want to say the first podcast.
Well,
JJ Lang: I mean, this is going to be the first thing we released. It's just like, I don't think this can be the first episode,
Julia Rios: the first episode,
JJ Lang: because it's just feels wrong to come in there and be like, this is what we're going to talk about. That's the first episode. Have you ever written an introduction before in your life?
You show, you don't tell. We can't have an episode about what the episodes are going to be.
Julia Rios: That is so not true in academia. Literally the intro is, here's what I'm going to tell you. And then the paper is now going to tell you what I'm going to tell you. And I'm the conclusion like, here's what I've just told
JJ Lang: you.
that's why this is. Yes. Yes. And it's, I don't know, as academia has been dropout, I want everyone to know our mission statement and stuff, but I'm very down to talk about this and explore this. It's just, I want the first episode to be, I don't know, like a meteor S I want, I want, I want it to speak for itself.
I want it to be a banger, right? I'm not saying that this lacks bang ability, I'm just saying that it's a different conversation than I think something that could be called the first episode. So I don't want to call this the first episode.
Julia Rios: I definitely understand your line of reasoning, but I do think if anyone is listening to this, that in the comments, I don't know if podcasts
have
JJ Lang: comment or listening and you start talking out loud, we pick it up.
Julia Rios: And when you do that, if you could please comment on the bankability of me and JJ individually, but also. As a
JJ Lang: group, please. Yeah. So again, to clarify, that offers for Daniel near to its feet. Daniel,
Julia Rios: don't listen to JJ.
JJ Lang: ~I think we could have, by the way, a full episode of like, how do we trick Daniel narrated ski into coming on the podcast?~
~Yeah. ~
Julia Rios: ~And I want listeners to call in with their ideas and we'll work. ~
JJ Lang: ~Yeah, absolutely. That could be, yeah. Like how do we set a Daniel? I ~
Julia Rios: ~know he's so hard to figure out.~ I really would like to explain my crush on Daniel narrowed. Did ski?
JJ Lang: Yeah. Like to Daniel risky.
Julia Rios: Mm, no. Specifically to everyone besides didn't own their Desky.
So everyone, besides Daniel Nunez feet, keep listening. If you are Daniel narrative. Just scroll.
JJ Lang: We'll pause for three seconds for you to pause the video to, you know, continue. Um,
Julia Rios: because I feel like people find this baffling I'm baffled by the people who are baffled, but I remember being out to dinner one night with some non chess friends and they were kind of asked me, you know, you've been really into this for awhile.
What got you into chess? And I had to think about it and I realized that one day the fall of. 20. I randomly had a YouTube [00:36:00] suggestion, which was one of Daniel's earlier videos. He played like a lower rated player and it was kind of like, how does a, how does a Grandmaster beat a club player? And he explained it.
And so I showed them the video. Cause I thought if I show them, then they'll understand why I got done test. Oh like this guy, ~ And then they all looked at me like I was the stupidest person on earth.~ I was like, no, I mean, I know he's not like a super model, but it's attractive.
And they were looking at me like I had three
JJ Lang: heads, which is as much as I want to make fun of you. I mean, I can't make fun of you more than you just said, rest yourself there. But it's also people being good at things and good at explaining the things they're doing is attractive. And that's, that's something that most people agree with.
And so it's so weird that when it comes to chess, a lot of people are. Baffled by that, even if you're not good at chess or care about chess, you understand that like people find Larry David hot now
Julia Rios: they'll think that's true. Did
JJ Lang: I'm like making, I, I go on, people might be named JJ, but weren't you the one who sent me that Jennifer Lawrence quote about Larry David making it hot to be.
Oh, yeah, big time. Yeah. I was like pulling that in for you because you judge
Julia Rios: and I were on the phone last night and we did agree on this, but yeah, I definitely think there's something to that. And I think that's why people do love Donna's Twitch stream and his YouTube channel when he teaches. And if we're going kind of back to what we were saying, like what makes someone a good chess coach, a good chess teacher, whatever that is.
He definitely has. He loves chess, kind of unironically. He's really excited about it. He'll be playing and you see him light up and I'll be like, oh yeah, this line, I played this once in a game eight years ago. And then later he'll pull up some game that he played or that someone in the 1920s played. And there is something so infectious about
JJ Lang: that.
Absolutely. It's so weird when people. Don't seem to be infected by that. So I guess like the last question I wanted to ask you as a clinical psychologist, for people who don't find that infectious, or at the very least charming, what is wrong with them?
This is, I assume how psychology is
Julia Rios: done, right? This is how every session goes. Yep. Exactly.
JJ Lang: Somebody walks into the room, offends you in some way and you proceed to tell them why their brain is.
Julia Rios: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So for people who are not infected by test, I mean, one note, no ethics. I mean, it's a moral failing, correct.
But it's also a personality
JJ Lang: problem. Okay. So is it just the, is that the lack of taste or does it go deeper? Yes. Agreed. Okay. Well, thanks for listening everyone. Thanks.
Julia Rios: It's a character flaw. It's an intelligence deficit.
JJ Lang: Okay, I'm going to, I'm going to have to jump in there. Okay. You know what? You've talked to enough chess players to know that chess and intelligence have nothing to do
Julia Rios: with each other.
Oh yeah. We can definitely talk about this at length. Well, they don't have nothing to do with each
JJ Lang: other. They have nothing to do. No, they
Julia Rios: do not have zero to do with each other. When I hear people want to talk about IQ or talk about intelligence, let's define our terms.
JJ Lang: We can just go full on and do eugenics.
Like what Lyft for knowledge, like what had shaped should you have if you're going to play open games, but
Julia Rios: what is intelligence? And this is actually relatively poorly defined in the fields, but it's so egregious really used in popular culture in the media. So when people would try to talk about correlations between tests and intelligence, I always do want to dive into that.
Great. What's intelligent,
JJ Lang: but I'm hearing is that the highest rated chess players have the biggest IQs? Yes,
Julia Rios: took so much to filter the joke that you were baiting me to make. But to answer your question, do they have the highest intelligence? What is intelligence? How would you measure that? If you're asking me, do they have a [00:40:00] highest IQ?
if you think. IQ is a valid and reliable way of testing. What we think of as, you know, quote unquote intelligence. I firmly disagree. I feel bad for you, but I'm actually sure that there probably might be some correlation, but why would that correlation exist? Who scores high on IQ tests?
Those might be the same people who have. Did things like a chess coach who have an education it's like when
JJ Lang: people train or you that there's some sort of biological justification for why men are better at chess, because there are proven biological differences such as slight difference in rapid eye movement between men and women on average.
And it's like, So the difference between social positions and men and women in the hunter gatherer era, perfectly tracks, why women just can't understand the complexities of the Berlin defense. That is exactly the sort of thing that's just biologically
Julia Rios: encoded. Yeah. So first off we would have to have a long conversation about what is intelligence, how do you define it then?
How do you operationalize intelligence? How do you measure that in a reliable, valid way? People can't even begin to answer those questions. But the also would have to have a conversation about the difference between correlation and causation. If we want to think about do these things in my fond to each other.
So man, that should be a whole episode. Do you
JJ Lang: think there is more correlation between intelligence, loosely defined and just playing or intelligence loosely to find and trolling on Twitter?
Julia Rios: I would also need to operationalize the term trolling on Twitter before I would feel comfortable answering that question
JJ Lang: using our next guest.
And you scary.
Julia Rios: I just thought it'd be awesome.
JJ Lang: And Neisha, if you're listening, you already wanted the on, you know, what to do DMS.
Julia Rios: Yeah. If you come to Anarbor though, I can't buy you a coffee. Cause I, I want to keep that exclusive for Daniel
JJ Lang: narrative. If you come to Nebraska and I will apologize personally, on behalf of Nebraska,
Julia Rios: I love that.
Yeah, that will also be, I think a good topic for us to discuss in the future is the trolling culture of chess. Uh, I feel like there, there really has become this very strong focus on self-deprecation of like, oh, I suck so much. I blunder game. I don't study those drugs are funny, but I feel like we've seen those jokes a lot.
I'm ready for a new wave where people are like unstick at chess, but it's just never true. So,
JJ Lang: oh, oh. Almost like appropriation of not like bragging, but supposed to take pride in. Accomplishments like ironic appropriation of that. Yeah. I'm really into that.
Julia Rios: This is why recently. Me meeting somebody in seven moves playing the Benoni, where I was actually just going to send it to you.
And then I was like, you know what? Let's just let the masses see what I can really do when someone blenders may in one.
JJ Lang: Yeah. I think like you really showed your mastery of 200 level tactics there and yeah,
Julia Rios: it literally is like a 200,
JJ Lang: isn't it probably, I mean, all your moves were good. You, I mean, you, you didn't really have a better option there.
Then meet in one.
Julia Rios: Uh, a few months prior, there was a tactic that I missed. Nice.
JJ Lang: Oh, good. I'm glad that, that, that makes it even better is I think what I think though, I feel like my timeline is full of people bragging about their wins or like showing the results of just random, pretty fast games or something.
And so it's this weird thing where it's like the earnest self-deprecation and the trolling self-deprecation and then there's earnest, bragging. Yeah. I think troll bragging is.
Julia Rios: The, the earnest self-deprecation actually really does touch me because it's so rare that I feel that people are vulnerable in that.
I see people post games where they're like, oh man, blunder city. And then they play a really tight game. No, no, I'm not talking about you. I feel like you only send me in games where you're like wanting to see a dead body.
JJ Lang: I mean, that is my favorite way to introduce a chess game, but know something that I've heard you complain [00:44:00] about before is like, when I am like, man, I suck at this game and you're like, if you suck at this game, what am I?
And I'm like, I don't care what you do. Oh, I feel like a lot of players who are strong at chess relative to some standard are also very sensitive to how much they're lacking and that is earnest self-deprecation. And even if it comes off as ironic,
Julia Rios: and when we have those conversations, JJ, who is objectively correct, because I did a Twitter poll to measure this.
And if we go back to those results, I feel like one of us was totally right. And then the other one was embarrassing.
JJ Lang: The tiger, any of the majority cited with Julia on this one, but that might have to do with sample size, the kinds of people who would follow and engage with her posts might not be though.
I appreciate it. Look when I, but uh, but look, I've said this before, when I say I suck at chess, I don't mean that like, my understanding is zero. I mean, like the amount of games I play where I'm like, why did I do that? I know better seems to be much higher than the frequency that people are on my strength or of understanding, play their games.
And so like, why am I so bad at like getting through a game without doing something I know better than I.
Julia Rios: What if we paused on that, JJ, and didn't treat it like a rhetorical question of why do I do that, but actually thought about it. Why do you do that? Why do you do that?
JJ Lang: Well, I do, I do that probably because I was super disciplined when I started playing, just can never kind of became the most disciplined in anything and kind of enjoy letting my mind wander on to stuff.
And then impulse control plus that equals there. And I can admonish myself for that, but I don't know if I've ever fully done the hard work that I even preach sometimes of actually getting a sort of, not quite checklist, but just to sort of pattern. But then, but then the other part is the impulse control, you know, like pop through, sees check pots or plays, check.
It's like I see, I see a good movie and then I can't help, but notice that I've already played it. It's a good answer. Are you going to stop me from doing that? You're not the kind of, of like brain person who just gives up drugs. Right.
Julia Rios: Good. I am legally not able to give out drugs if that helps. Not that type of person legally,
JJ Lang: correct?
Correct. This is going to be a fun bonus
Julia Rios: episode, but as a true expert on self-control and inhibition, those are some of my specialties. I'll try to, I'll try to show you the way I really want that to be my character bugged us, just like I am disciplined and I had a lot of self.
JJ Lang: Famous famous Julia traits.
The number of times I've seen her restrain herself from just pushing her up pond is just,
Julia Rios: if it's not a blender, I'm going to do it. And if it's a blender and if it's a blender, I am sometimes going to absolutely do it. Hell yeah, it just feels so good. Am I trying to win a game of tests or am I trying to feel good?
It's not a stupid
JJ Lang: question. It feels good to do bad things.
Julia Rios: I just want to do a hundred stuff with my friends.
JJ Lang: And on that note, I think that's also like a genuine problem I have is as somebody who is sucked in by narratives or just pleasing things, or in general, kind of finds beauty in the madness and the chaos in the world.
It's very hard to know. Go into the really complicated, horrifying messes of variations are actually, it's an impulse I need to control. And the sense of where they're clean alternatives that I'm ignoring, but partially it's like, do I want to control this impulse? Because ultimately if that's really the game I enjoy playing, it might not have the highest win rate.
But like we were saying earlier, you know, like this hyper focus on competition or the results there, it's just, maybe it's even wrong to just say. You just need impulse control. I'm not saying you were saying this, but it just, maybe it's wrong for me to think. I just need impulse control. If I'm clear with myself that this is what I want more than I want to win this game, that might not be a bad thing,
Julia Rios: which brings us to our potentially best future podcasts, sections of adult not improve hers.
JJ Lang: [00:48:00] Yes. So enemy of the podcast, Ben Johnson invented the idea of adults. 1923 old when he was still a prisoner of war in post-World or Austria. And there, he had this idea that even though children are genetically superior at learning. Adults could do it too. And the problem that that has led to is he has since then made it illegal to enjoy playing chess without trying to improve.
But there is an underground network of adults who just enjoy playing chess and they have to do so in shame and secrecy because of the watchful eye of Ben Johnson.
Julia Rios: And they all literally meet at a bar in Nebraska where JJ
JJ Lang: frequence bless their hearts.
Julia Rios: And if you want any insight into how JJ treats me, he calls them the Julia's.
I'm
JJ Lang: probably going to edit this part out because at least one of them might listen. You totally
Julia Rios: can, but is a solid rose I'm just like add. Lifelong 1400
JJ Lang: used to be a happy 1400. No, but seriously all love for, for Ben Johnson for perpetual chess. But a lot of people who are adults do struggle with making sense of how to find the time and how to improve in part, because a lot of material are experienced in pedagogy on chest is geared towards children or those with them limited time or seemingly on limited recently.
But there also, like for those of us who play, tournament's like, we're probably see the people who are there every week or every month who were very happy to be there, whose ratings haven't really changed that much. And they seem to care about the results, of course, but they don't necessarily seem particularly interested in doing anything drastic to change or like they're not, they don't drop out after a few months of not improving or something.
And some of them, you know, they just think they're doing everything right. And can't figure out what's going on. But a lot of them, I think are. Accepted that they're here to play chess, not to become world champion one day. And I just think there's something really cool about the people who are there for reasons other than first and foremost, getting really good, really fast, especially the people who like would prioritize playing a fun game of chess above maximizing the efficiency of their study plan, because that's a very wonderful kind of personality that doesn't get a lot of respect in this, like a hyper competitive hyper improvement oriented.
Julia Rios: And we want to have you people on an episode of our pod. Yes,
JJ Lang: absolutely. And we would love to hear, we would love for you, you know, just to show the world what makes you tick even when you don't have a three-point rating gain over the last 50 tournament games to show off
JJ: As always thank you for letting us take you into this deep dark forest.
Julia: where two plus two equals five and the path leading out is only wide enough for listeners like you. ,
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JJ: and tell all of your.
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