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Speaker 1

00:00

You probably need to have multiple agents running in your head. So 1 agent is how do I play good chess? Yeah. Second agent, how do I play not too good of chess?

Speaker 1

00:13

And third agent is how do I help Lex move correctly?

Speaker 2

00:19

Okay. We have 5 minutes each. It Looks like I've got, you've given me white Lex, which

Speaker 1

00:23

is

Speaker 2

00:23

nice of you. We will start the clock, so my clock's counting down.

Speaker 1

00:28

Okay. Non-standard.

Speaker 2

00:30

Yeah, the English opening, you know, I'm English so I have to do that So, you know you press the clock when you're when you've done your move. That's a good starting move very solid Lex

Speaker 1

00:39

Oh, that's not good.

Speaker 2

00:39

Yeah. No, this is good. This is very solid.

Speaker 1

00:42

Okay

Speaker 2

00:43

We're quite far away from the from the board Yeah, I'll press your clock for you don't worry.

Speaker 1

00:50

All right. Are we far away from the English opening at this point?

Speaker 2

00:55

No this is a good line you're playing very standard.

Speaker 1

01:00

You have to get used to it. They always do the funny thing where...

Speaker 2

01:06

Very nice, kidding me.

Speaker 1

01:09

You have to take notes of actually what move you've taken. Yes.

Speaker 2

01:15

Yeah, that's always a good plan, keeping the king safe. I'm gonna do the same. Play very well so far.

Speaker 1

01:20

We just, we just say, yeah,

Speaker 2

01:21

you made your mistakes at this point. Nothing so far.

Speaker 1

01:24

This is, I'm not going to, I'm like, Oh,

Speaker 2

01:26

here's the Bishop Knight swap that we were talking about earlier, right? The tension, you're creating the tension in the created tension in the game.

Speaker 1

01:31

Relieving the tension.

Speaker 2

01:32

Relieving the tension, exactly. All right. Now it gets harder.

Speaker 2

01:38

Now you have to come up with your middle game plan. Would you say? You did a very good opening. So you're in a fine position so far.

Speaker 2

01:47

Yeah. Very nice. Very nice.

Speaker 1

01:51

What's your strongest opener opening game or end game?

Speaker 2

01:55

I would say probably the middle game middle game. So this kind of, this kind of point. Very good.

Speaker 2

02:02

Very good. Very aggressive, aggressive licks.

Speaker 1

02:07

In fact, If I could sacrifice pieces,

Speaker 2

02:11

I really would.

Speaker 1

02:13

That's not a good move, is it?

Speaker 2

02:14

No, That's a good move. That's a very nice move.

Speaker 1

02:19

Are you afraid of using the Queen?

Speaker 2

02:21

Yeah, the Queen, you know, you've got to be careful when you use the Queen. I need to complicate the game a little bit for you. You're doing too well.

Speaker 1

02:29

Oh, Am I losing a piece here?

Speaker 2

02:31

No, you're not losing a piece, you're doing okay actually. I'm gonna take it anyway. It's only a pawn.

Speaker 2

02:43

That's how it starts. Only a pawn. That's how it starts, but it's only a pawn. Very good.

Speaker 2

02:52

This is not still a poor, only a poor,

Speaker 1

02:55

I have to, I don't feel comfortable with you having a queen on the board.

Speaker 2

03:01

It's a Queens off less dangerous.

Speaker 1

03:03

It makes me feel much safer.

Speaker 2

03:04

So now we're in the end game now. So you're, you're on better territory.

Speaker 1

03:07

What's the definition of an endgame?

Speaker 2

03:08

Well, the queens coming off is usually the beginning of the endgame. It's not the only part of the endgame, but it's 1 bit of the endgame. See, that's a pretty cool idea, what you've done there.

Speaker 2

03:19

I'll take off your knight now.

Speaker 1

03:21

I think the internet's gonna disagree with

Speaker 2

03:23

that. But. Now, you see this is an interesting dynamic position with your bishop and my knight, but my knight's in a Good strong spot there.

Speaker 1

03:32

So you're attacking the bishop. My bishop is not... So what do I do with this bishop?

Speaker 1

03:37

Maybe I threaten you some other kind of way. Yeah. But then you're going to attack there. I don't know.

Speaker 1

03:46

I think I'm just running scared.

Speaker 2

03:49

You're running scared now.

Speaker 1

03:49

Fear can't run.

Speaker 2

03:52

Can't run it.

Speaker 1

03:55

Okay. Yeah. That's not, is that? Oh, that's fine.

Speaker 1

04:00

That's the only move actually. It's the only 1? All right. It feels like there's not much to do here.

Speaker 2

04:08

Well, you've got to, you have to have to come at something good here.

Speaker 1

04:12

Oh boy. And the time is running out.

Speaker 2

04:14

Time's running out. Escape. That's a good escape for your king.

Speaker 2

04:18

I'm going to come here now.

Speaker 1

04:19

Yeah. There's nothing else. There's nothing else.

Speaker 2

04:22

I cannot get another 1 of your pawns.

Speaker 1

04:25

I feel like there's some smart move that I'm totally missing.

Speaker 2

04:29

Yeah, that seems reasonable. But I'm not going to take a second pawn.

Speaker 1

04:32

Okay, that's what you mean.

Speaker 2

04:33

Yeah.

Speaker 1

04:39

Maybe just eat away

Speaker 2

04:42

at your stuff. All right. This is is...

Speaker 2

04:56

Slowly constricting you. Yeah, slowly going to take all your pawns. You play very well though, Lex. You haven't made any major mistakes.

Speaker 2

05:03

It's just slow, slow, slow death.

Speaker 1

05:05

The internet honestly will very much disagree. But let's see. This slow death is better than- Than a fast death.

Speaker 1

05:15

Embarrassing in the beginning. It's that I didn't get checkmate in

Speaker 2

05:18

the first few moves. This feels very constrained. You're getting slowly constrained.

Speaker 1

05:22

I'm trying

Speaker 2

05:22

to play like AlphaZero.

Speaker 1

05:25

Is that

Speaker 2

05:25

what that would be? Yeah, a kind of controlled end.

Speaker 1

05:30

You know, the interesting thing is the willingness to sacrifice pieces by oh, yes, that's so beautiful.

Speaker 2

05:35

It is beautiful See, so now I'm gonna make use of all these pawns. I've taken

Speaker 1

05:43

Would you say your Alpha 0 is much better than you at sacrificing pieces.

Speaker 2

05:48

Oh, yeah, intentionally. I sometimes, you know, lose them by mistake, but Alpha 0 is planning to lose them.

Speaker 1

05:59

This feels extremely constraining. Yeah, how close do you check me? Is there any way for me out of this?

Speaker 2

06:03

No, really? No. So these pieces can't.

Speaker 2

06:06

Yeah. I'm getting basically all your pieces are getting constrained. I'm just going to march these pawns down here or bring this rook to help out.

Speaker 1

06:12

Okay. So if I take this knight with the rook.

Speaker 2

06:15

Yeah, you could do that. That would be a final sort of hope. My knight's, you see how strong my knight's been in this game compared to your bishop.

Speaker 2

06:22

Yeah. As we were talking earlier.

Speaker 1

06:24

He's already done the damage.

Speaker 2

06:24

Yeah, it's done all the damage. Yeah, you can get rid of him now, but I think he's already, it's already done all the damage.

Speaker 1

06:30

Oh, and my time ran out.

Speaker 2

06:31

And your time ran out.

Speaker 1

06:33

We're going to finish

Speaker 2

06:34

this anyway. Finish the game anyway. It's time ran out.

Speaker 2

06:37

So you've lost once, but we can lose 2 times. Yeah, take that. But now I'm going to get a few back crank weakness.

Speaker 1

06:49

All right. And, right. And then this pawn structure, and you're gonna bring out the

Speaker 2

06:56

other rook. Yeah, I'm gonna bring the other rook. Finally gonna swing the other rook into the game.

Speaker 2

07:05

Check.

Speaker 1

07:07

And I'm just gonna keep writing.

Speaker 2

07:08

Yeah, keep writing.

Speaker 1

07:09

How many moves would you estimate here?

Speaker 2

07:12

It's going to be about 10 from here. I'm going to Swap your rook off. Your final defensive piece I'm going to take.

Speaker 2

07:22

No, that's fine. Well you can... I'll check here. Oh.

Speaker 1

07:32

And he's just marched that to the end.

Speaker 2

07:33

Yeah, gonna march this pawn to the end now.

Speaker 1

07:35

Well, I think this is a

Speaker 2

07:36

good- Thank

Speaker 1

07:37

you, it did it.

Speaker 2

07:39

It's an honor to have been defeated so gracefully. You played very, very well. I was impressed, I was impressed.

Speaker 2

07:46

You did great.

Speaker 1

07:46

I didn't ask you, what do you think is the most beautiful thing you've seen AlphaZero do?

Speaker 2

07:51

Oh yes, so there was actually the most beautiful game that I've seen AlphaZero play, is being dubbed the Immortal Zogzwang game by Akademata on 1 1 of YouTube, brilliant YouTube commentators, and he, it was, AlphaZero playing Stockfish and, sacrificing a load of pieces to, get Stockfish's, all of the Stockfish's major pieces, Queen and 2 Rooks, stuck in the corner. Basically seal them up, like in a tomb. And Zagzwang means that any move that the player makes will make their position worse.

Speaker 2

08:29

And It's never been done to stockfish before and AlphaZero did it super elegantly. Through sacrificing pieces? Sacrificing pieces, yeah. It's a beautiful video online on it.

Speaker 1

08:37

And thank you for giving me and signing this book, Genshin.

Speaker 2

08:41

You're welcome, you're welcome.

Speaker 1

08:43

What is the book about?

Speaker 2

08:44

The book was written by the British chess champion and Women International Master Natasha Reagan and Matthew Sadler. And I known them both for years, for my chess days as a kid. And when they heard about AlphaZero, before we released it, they wanted to come in and try it out.

Speaker 2

09:05

We gave them full behind-the-scenes access to it. And then Matthew Sadler said to me, it's like discovering the notebooks of a hidden champion that no 1 knew about. And he then wrote this book about all of the different ideas that AlphaZero had. And the cool thing is in there, in that book, so it's a chess book, but also the first few chapters about how we built AlphaZero, our journey towards it.

Speaker 2

09:28

And then Magnus Carlsen was 1 of the first people we gave the book to, and he sort of publicly said it was very useful to him and he's incorporated a lot of the ideas into his own play.

Speaker 1

09:38

The new ideas, you could say, created by AlphaZero. Tilex, a fellow explorer of the mysteries of the universe. Demis, Thank you so much.

Speaker 1

09:49

Thank you for everything you do.