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Perpetual Chess Podcast

EP 406- Peter Doggers on The Chess Revolution: A big picture look at Cheating, Engines and the Explosion of Online Chess

Perpetual Chess Podcast

Perpetual Chess LLC

Sports, Leisure, Hobbies

4.8678 Ratings

🗓️ 29 October 2024

⏱️ 69 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Peter Doggers is an award-winning chess journalist who is currently the director of News and Events at Chess.com. His role has given him a ringside seat to modern chess history, as he has attended many of the world’s top events, and interviewed the likes of GM Garry Kasparov, Hikaru Nakamura, and countless others. Peter’s new book, The Chess Revolution: From the Ancient World to the Digital Age covers everything from the beginnings of chess, to its many representations in pop culture, to the explosion in popularity the game has experienced in the internet age. Peter’s excellent book covers chess from all angles, so we zeroed in on a few of my favorite topics from the book including: the history of chess and computers, recent stories around chess cheating, and their implications for the future of chess, the rise of Chess.com, and the story behind the making of Peter’s book. Every chess fan will learn something from Peter’s book, and I greatly enjoyed discussing it with him. Timestamps of topics discussed are below.  Thanks to our sponsors, Chessable.com.  Check out their new offerings including GM Garry Kasparov’s much anticipated Chessable debut! If you sign up for Chessable Pro, please use the following link to help support Perpetual Chess: https://www.chessable.com/pro/?utm_source=affiliate&utm_medium=benjohnson&utm_campaign=pro 0:03- We begin by discussing allegations of GM Kirill Shevchenko cheating at an OTB tournament 11:00- We discuss OTB and online cheating more generally 16:00- Peter tells a story from his book, of the famous Mechanical Turk, which was an 18th-century chess-playing machine with a human hidden behind it.  https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=the+turk+chess 21:00- We discuss the famous Kasparov-Deep Blue match as well as another watershed “man vs. machine” match featuring GM Michael Adams.  Mentioned: The TV series Rematch- more info here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rematch_(miniseries) 25:00- Patreon mailbag question: Where does Peter see chess heading in the next 10 years?  Mentioned: IM Daniel Rensch’s interview with Ilya Levitov https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6JeMsV9aNec 32:00- Peter tells the story of what he believes to be the first online encounter between Magnus and Hikaru in 2004 on the Internet Chess Club. We also discuss a “Secret” Magnus-Hikaru blitz match.  Mentioned: YouTube excerpt from Macauley Peterson https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tGXvcQP6VPo 37:00- The history of Chess.com and LiChess  Mentioned: Lichess founder Thibault Duplessis 39:00- We discuss the chess GOATS- Magnus, Fischer and Kasparov. As discussed in last week’s episode with FM Charles Hertan, did he consider Morphy for the GOAT list?  44:00- What was the biggest challenge in writing the book and compiling the material? 52:00- How did Peter find a publisher, that ultimately wound up in a bidding war? 58:00- Did Peter write in English or Dutch? 1:00:00- Peter’s favorite chapters?  1:02:00- Peter’s plans for an OTB comeback.  1:04:00- Thanks to Peter for joining! Here is how to reach him: You email Peter at Peter at chess dot com peterdoggers.com Chess.com profile- https://www.chess.com/players/peter-doggers Get the book here-  https://www.amazon.com/s?k=the+chess+revolution+peter+doggers&crid=2PYSZWX9BPES&sprefix=the+chess+rev%2Caps%2C164&ref=nb_sb_ss_ts-doa-p_1_13 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0

Hello everyone and welcome back to perpetual chess.

0:07.0

I wanted to give thanks as always to our sponsors, chescible.com.

0:10.0

We will be discussing one of the Chescible authors.

0:13.0

Gary Kasparov is finally out with his first Chescible course,

0:16.0

Great Predcessors Volume 4. It's about Bobby Fisher.

0:19.0

We'll probably be discussing Bobby Fisher, too.

0:21.7

So be sure to check that out, super exciting, 12 hours of video recording of Kasparov, just,

0:26.9

you know, going through Fisher's games. That's pretty cool. And of course, you can get it in text

0:31.6

and play-through format as well. As for our guest this week, it's someone I'm a longtime fan of he is a award-winning chess journalist,

0:40.8

the director of news and events for chess.com.

0:43.0

He's interviewed grandmasters like Magnus Carlson, Gary Kasparov, at Bobby Fisher's Graves.

0:49.0

And this is going to sound a little weird, but I'm a particular fan of his obituaries.

0:54.1

He covers all kinds of his obituaries.

1:01.5

He covers all kinds of chess news for chess.com, but whenever we lose one of the great figures in the chess world, I always really appreciate the in-depth features that he does

1:05.6

and the reflections he gets from the colleagues of whoever it is that we lost. So long-time fan of his writing,

1:13.3

and now he is out with a great new book called The Chess Revolution. And this is basically a modern

1:19.2

history of chess. It touches on the entire history going back to its beginnings. It's pop culture

1:24.6

representations, AI and chess engines, and how that impact the future of chess.

1:30.3

My favorite part of the book is the second half.

1:32.3

The first half is more about the broader history, the deeper history of chess, but the second half is really the modern history.

1:39.3

The rise of his company, Chess.com, the rise of engines, the rise of Magnus, so on and so forth.

1:46.5

And obviously, I'm pretty well steeped in the chess culture, but I learned a lot from this

...

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