The Chess Experience
The Chess Experience
CM Can Kabadayi: How to Prevent Blunders and Why He’s a Top Coach for Club Players
123 He went from beginner to 2150 FIDE in just four years. And that’s without receiving any coaching! Later, he became one of Chessable’s most popular course creators, recently winning Author of the Year in 2024.
CM Can Kabadayi is a rare and impressive chess talent: he excels both as a player and a coach.
In this episode, we chat about his journey from a Ph.D in cognitive science to becoming an in-demand course creator and popular chess YouTuber.
Can also offers some great insights for chess improvement. He shares his unique “CLAMP” method for preventing blunders – a systematic framework to help you identify Checks, Loose Pieces, Alignments, Mobility Restrictions, and Passed Pawns.
We also discuss the most popular video from Can’s YouTube channel and his new show, called The Chess Congnition Podcast.
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Hey, welcome to the chess experience On this show. It's all about helping adult improvers. I want to make learning chess easier for you to navigate and I also want you to have a more fun experience along the way. I'm your host, daniel Lona, a fellow chess amateur. Let's get to it.
Daniel:This show is sponsored by chesscom, the world's largest chess community. One of chesscom's most popular features is called Game Review. This feature weaves together a lot of benefits. In one post-game analysis, for example, you can see how accurately you played, whether you made any moves that were deemed brilliant or great, which makes me feel a lot better about my chess when I get one of those. And Game Review also offers a virtual coach that gives insights on every move. It'll also show you alternate lines that would have been better for you to help you understand how you can improve your game. So go on chesscom, play a game and try out the Game Review.
Daniel:Welcome to this week's episode. Our guest is one of the brightest stars of the latest generation of chess coaches. Dr John Kabadaya is a candidate master from Turkey and who now lives in Sweden, although John didn't get serious about chess until age 17, after a few years of hard study, he earned a FIDE rating of 2150. Later he would climb to 2219 FIDE. But before he ever made chess a career endeavor, john earned his PhD in cognitive science, a subject that influences his approach right now to chess coaching and teaching. Of all that John has accomplished in chess so far in recent years, he's probably made his biggest splash as a renowned chessable author. He's won several awards with chessable, most recently their biggest award, which is author of the year for 2024, even beating out the Garry Kasparov. John is also one of chessable's most popular authors, publishing over 10 amazing courses that are ideal for club players. His most recent one, preventing Blunders, is a topic we'll cover in depth in this episode. Plus, our discussion will include some great insights and tips for you on how you can reduce the frequency of blunders in your own game. There are links in the show notes to John's courses, his social media channels and his superb YouTube channel, which has tons of videos to help you improve your chess.
Daniel:Here's my interview with John. I hope you enjoy it. Welcome to the podcast, john. I'm so excited to have you on the show. We've both been aware of each other and kind of like loosely following each other on Twitter for a while it's always exciting to connect live when we get a chance Very impressed with all that you've accomplished in chess and continue to do in chess so, and we'll get into all of that, but I just want to say thank you for being on the show and welcome.
Can:It's my pleasure, daniel. Thank you so much for inviting me. You're also a podcast that I was closely following, especially episodes involving chess improvements, I'm sure I mean. Andras Tolt was there many times. Dan Heisman was there many times. Dan Heisman was there many, many times. I got great lessons from your podcast. Thank you for bringing value to this chess community.
Daniel:Thank you so much. Oh, my pleasure, yeah, my pleasure to do so. Yeah, those are fantastic guests that you're listening to. Yeah, they are some of the best in teaching chess improvement, so for sure. But on that point, I consider you one of the excellent, excellent people out there teaching chess improvement and I'm excited to get into that. We'll spend some extra time on a particular topic, on blundering, today, so looking forward to that. But before we get into instruction, I'd like to learn more about you, john, and your journey, just to get an overview of how you came to be where you are today. So you began learning chess relatively late, at age 17, which I find interesting. What got you into the game at that age?
Can:Yeah, I actually learned the rules from my cousin when I was eight, back in Istanbul. She was getting chess lessons from her school, but that was a private school, so she was getting chess lessons. I was not, so then she told me the rules. Right Already, of course, I sort of liked the game directly, but it took me a while to get serious about the game itself. I see, you know, we were still playing with our friends in high school. You know, between the lessons, you know like lesson breaks and so on, but it took me a while to get really serious about it.
Can:There was also this crazy university exam in Turkey. When you're 18, you take that exam that will determine your life. So almost all high school years were spent for preparation of that single exam, which takes time away from chess, of course. But once I got into uni for the first year of prep school, I was all into chess, you know. I see, so, age of 17 until 21, which I got my first ever Euler rating, I was very much obsessed about the game and, yeah, just learned mostly from the books as well, you know, playing online, studying myself obsessively, and yeah, that was my journey and of course I became an already 2100 player. It was my first rating, actually, which is unusual actually.
Daniel:What your first rating was 2000? 2150 already. Yes, okay, that's incredible as a first rate and we're going to talk about that for sure. So you said that you know you kind of got serious about chess at 17. You learned the basics earlier than that, but you got serious at 17. What sparked that interest to get serious about the game at that age?
Can:Yeah, as I said, I was always. It was always in the back of my head. You know chess, like I already started liking it the moment I was introduced to the game. I found it fascinating. I was even playing this battle chess game which is all PC. My cousin had this game called Battle Chess. You know, pieces are turning into monsters, like it's quite animated, like back in the old days. You know I'm talking about maybe 1994 or something, so. But as I said, like playing with my friends in the high school in lesson breaks, sort of competitive mindset.
Can:The game itself, I think, is so deep and fascinating because you know it's just searching for the truth. It's so complex, it's like a problem-solving game and I'm kind of a personality also that can obsess, get obsessed about those games, you know. So maybe that was why. But it was also an individual game. You know your own boss, like there's nobody to blame. That's also adds to its value, to my mind. But I was definitely interested in the game itself. You know this whole dynamics of the game and I obsessively studied it like ever since I was in the in the uni, as I said. So, yeah, it's hard to say right when it comes to like your big hobbies in life. It's very hard to point out exactly why you're so much into it. You A little of those passions like a bug, you know. Once it's in the system it's just very hard to get rid of.
Daniel:Yeah, you're talking to the right person about that. I totally understand and I love your comment that the complexity of the game is one of the big things that attracted you to it, because I definitely feel the same way. The fact that it's insanely difficult is somehow appealing. I don't know what that says about us, but yeah, yeah, I agree, it still is.
Can:I talked to jacob argard last week for my podcast and he says yeah, I mean, nobody gets obsessed about tic-tac-toe, right, because chess is much more difficult than tic-tac-toe exactly the journey is beautiful because of the complexity. Yes, right.
Daniel:So I have written here that in the age range from about 17 is it fair to say you were roughly a beginner level at that point yes, I mean yes, more or less yes, yes, okay yes, but then just by four years later, you were at 2153 feed a.
Daniel:That's an incredible increase in ability in just a four-year span. And now I have a couple of questions about that. The first one is that you said your first rating was 2000. So please tell me that you were doing a ton of chess before you got that. Yes, I was.
Can:It's not, like, you know, one-time single-shot crazy accident. That cannot be explained. It was mostly about study. As I said, you know I was very much obsessed about books, like my first book was Capablanca's Fundamentals. My grandmother bought it to me for a birthday gift. I remember Maybe that was even like when I was 16, 17, just when I was starting, you know, like when I was starting, she saw the interest and then she bought me that book. So then I bought many, many books myself. You know Gary Kasparov's, my Great Predecessors Bronstein announce my life, and you know games and crime weeks. I mean, if I go back to my old library back in Turkey, there are still all the books there. You know I couldn't manage to get everything to Sweden. I'm from a different library here, but most of my books are still there.
Can:I had this one table, you know wooden beautiful table. I was just sitting down analyzing games.
Can:You know, just historical games, world championships. I was also fascinated about those old masters Just playing out the games by myself, asking questions, annotations. Also, there was ICC back in that time. You know, I was also playing on ICC Some Blitz games, rapid games and even some correspondence games. I played actually in some websites back then, you know, just slow medium games, and I tried all kinds of formats, again obsessively passionate about the game, and just, yeah, that led to the increase of rating Again.
Can:It was a little surprise, by the way, because that was my first ever all-TV tournament when I was 21. I had no clue whatsoever how good I was, you know, and I was still mesmerized by the game. It was so beautiful, I was so much looking forward to it. It was an Istanbul chess festival, beautiful place. So I remember vividly that tournament and I played against very strong players as well, from Georgia, you know, some international masters. I did well. Again, it's good, you know, when you have zero expectations about yourself, you know, no anxiety whatsoever, nothing to protect, you just go and play. And then I got my first rating and, yeah, it's sort of stabilized from the range. That's interesting. I sort of kept that level almost for my entire chess life.
Daniel:You know, there was a great predictor-ish result that came out in the first one, so that's interesting. It was multiple years then before you did your first OTB tournament. Yes, I mean for someone who is as passionate about the game as you were, especially starting at age 17,. I'm a little surprised to know that it was years before you went to your first tournament.
Can:I was still playing in local tournaments in Ankara in my old university like university tournaments, all these tournaments, but they were not ELO registered, you know you have to play against certain ELO rated players.
Daniel:That is nine games to get your first ever ELO rating, and that took a long time, yeah okay, that, yeah, that definitely, and you definitely talked about a great list of resources that you were using at the time, both from books to ICC. Was this journey of chess in this period that we're talking about all self-guided, or did you work with a coach at all?
Can:Totally self-guided. Of course, I have one or two good friends from the university, from the university chess team. We were just hanging around, we were analyzing together, we were discussing ideas and so on, but, you know, like a very, very casual style I never had a coach. But, as I said, you know I was taking those book writers as my coaches. I even translated, together with a friend of mine, a chess book called Secrets of Modern Chess Strategy. Maybe you know that it's from John Watson International master. John Watson wrote this beautiful book, like monumental book, called, yeah, secrets of Modern Chess Strategy. I translated that book from English to Turkish also at the same time. You know, when I was like 19, 18. And I also learned a lot from that experience. You know, just playing out the games and discussing ideas. So, yeah, lots of immersion about the game, no-transcript, but not with a coach, not with a coach totally about obsessing myself. I even created my own first YouTube channel when I was 21 back in.
Can:Turkey terrible microphone quality, bad English, you know, but the passion was there. People were just saying amazing, the passionate YouTuber. You know terrible microphone and the bad accent, but I love your. I was getting so many such comments. You know the bad accent, but I love your video. I was getting so many such comments. The passion was there that led to the increase of ratings.
Daniel:Were the videos that you were initially creating on YouTube at that time. Were they instructional videos or were they just documenting your journey?
Can:Instructional Again, taking a master game, for example, Fisher, Kasparov, by Heroes analyzing their matches or their games. Totally about the instructed classics, classical games, Just analyzing, describing moves, ideas, why, questions and so on. That was the basic points.
Daniel:Yes, yeah, so I find that when people are as excited and committed to chess improvement as you were during that time, that they almost always have some big goals for themselves. You know they start to get ideas of like how far they can take it, and they get excited about that. Would you say that was true of you and, if so, what were some of those goals you created for yourself?
Can:Yeah, I was never driven by specific rating goals or rating points per se. Right Partly because of the entire journey was obsessive about chess without even playing OTB tournaments for four years, you know that was not even in my system. I actually loved the game. The passion was within, totally like intrinsic motivation to play, explore, understand, learn this beautiful game. And after I got my first ELO, of course there was this point of maybe I can become a candidate master. I'm very close to it, maybe I can pursue a FIDE mastership or something. But also I sort of knew that it required real effort to make that such a leap, for example, until international master level. And it was just about the time that I was coming to Sweden for my master's PhD studies. You know, life kicked in basically.
Can:And I sort of understood that. Okay, I had to choose between these two things and for a moment I focused on master's and PhD academia.
Daniel:Sure, sure, absolutely. That makes sense. So, yeah, let's talk about that. It's a perfect uh segue to the next part that I wanted to discuss, which is this period where you, you know, you start to work on your phd in cognitive science. Was that a period where you, you set chess aside mostly, or what was going on for you at that time?
Can:yeah, exactly so. First masters and then phd quite intense years, of course. Yeah, like, if you think about the phd years, for anyone I guess it's quite intense and your whole life becomes your phd topic.
Can:You know it's very hard to like take a step back and explore, like put so much time on some other hobbies. And it was a similar process for me. Um, you know, and it was just beautiful, of course, because I was also interested in that field, you know, doing experiments with different species. Even with ravens I did some experiments, you know. That explains their planning and self-control skills and so on, which connects to chess in some sense. You know those skills, so it was quite fascinating, yeah, but then since you know, once chess is in your system, it's very difficult to get low, of course. So I was still watching some YouTube, reading some books in the weekends.
Can:You know, in my free time, Even like as a book nerd myself, I was gathering positions across the years, you know, when I find like interesting game, I was saving them in my databases, which later actually helped me form those courses on Chessable. Yeah, Like as a book nerd, as a guy who knows much about chess history and so on, I think that also helped me across the years. I finally created my chess book courses, but I was always I mean never, you know lost in touch with the game. I was even I was remembering I was doing guest mood training as well in my PhD years. You know, I was just taking a master game, let's say Capablanca-Lasca World Championship, and I was playing like Capablanca, I was guessing the moves of Copa Blanca because, randomly, you know, oh, let's see how Copa Blanca played against Lasker. I find interesting, let's focus on that for this month. You know, Right, Like totally immersion, random immersion of the game itself.
Daniel:Yeah, yes, that's great that it was still. You know, I mean, like you said, you couldn't do it at the same level of intensity because you're working on your PhD program, but that's great that it was still part of what you were doing, even during that period. You said something interesting that caught my ear, which was that, even though you were heavily focused on your PhD program, you couldn't completely leave behind chess. That it was always with you and you were thinking about it. Do you find, because you immersed yourself so much in cognitive science during that period and beyond, do you find that cognitive science still is always something that you reflect on, even as you're doing all of this chess?
Can:Absolutely. If you think about the history of cognitive science, chess plays a huge role, right Even when it comes to formulation of intelligence by Alan Turing and so on. People thought that chess is the game that measures through intelligence, which is not the case, of course. But if you look at the historical development of cognitive science, chess also played a vital role. They even say like chess is like a fruit fly of cognitive science. You know like they did many experiments because it's a closed system.
Can:We can measure the performance objectively, which is very difficult when it comes to other domains of cognitive science. You know, like chess at least gives a certain rating point which is more or less accurate. So, and also, yeah, it's a closed system. Yeah, it's easier to do experiments using the chess boards, Like, if you think about historical experiments, like in the 70s by Simons, they gave chess positions to masters and amateurs. Masters are much better in remembering positions if they are meaningful, while amateurs are much less so. Right, but then it comes to random positions, it's more or less the same, Like masters lacking those chunks are also doing quite poorly, and so on. So if you look at the historical development of cognitive science, I think chess definitely played a big role and still I'm thinking about that a lot when I'm creating my courses using cognitive scientific methods for best learning outcomes and for best structuring of my lessons or courses. They are still quite relevant. You know, educational humans think how memories are formed, how learning takes place. So it's quite relevant. I think that yeah, for sure.
Daniel:I mean it's amazing that you have that background and I can only wish, based on everything you just said right now, that we could just spend a whole extra separate hour on that alone, because you know, like the intersection between chess and cognitive science, which, as you said, is large, I mean I feel like even if we dedicated one one hour episode on that, we would just scratch the surface absolutely. When did you earn your phd? What year was that? That was in 2000 2017.
Can:Oh my god, it's been almost eight years now.
Daniel:Yes, yes, almost eight years, okay so then, now we come to a critical moment in your chess life again, which is during the pandemic in 2020. Yes, I guess now we're a few years out from when you earned your PhD and in that year you started coaching chess part-time, that's right. What led to this new path for you, where you decided to say, okay, I want to start coaching.
Can:Yeah, you know, pandemic was a time of re-evaluation right In life, like people were just changing their trajectories, thinking about their path in life and so on. It was a moment of reflection, and it was definitely a moment of reflection for me too. Life changes took place. My son was born in 2019. You know, it's a huge change in life as well. So then, of course, in the back of my, I sort of also wanted to have a plan B in life. You know, just in case and chess is beautiful, that's my hobby.
Can:So, because of COVID, because everybody was locked down and chess was so huge after the Queen's Gambit, I decided, at least in the weekends, you know, maybe give some lessons to people. Maybe I like, because I know that I was very much into teaching as well. You know I love to teach. So I thought, why don't I just at least try to see, give some lessons and see how it goes? That's how it started. There was this even website that is now shut down called coachescom. They were just. You know, every coach can join, people decide their hourly fee, and then, you know, anyone can apply, anyone can become your student. So then I thought, okay, why don't I just try?
Can:I got some students from different parts of the world. You know, just started from something very small, like in the evening, sometimes in the weekends, and people gave me amazing feedback and then just grow from there. You know like it's a beautiful cycle. I also, of course, I saw my own interests as well. I love what I was doing there, helping people grow. My positions were already there. I was also forming new positions when it comes to my future courses on Chessable that I was giving to my students. So the entire cycle sort of started there at the pandemic time and then gradually from year to year, people told each other and so on and gradually just improved from there and at some point with Chessable we can discuss later, of course, with Chessable courses at some point it even became yeah, why don't I just take it for life? You know my first topic.
Daniel:Right, that's how it all started. That's amazing. I love hearing about that. I mean, it's one thing to just state it factually, but I don't know if necessarily everyone listening understands that's a big decision. I mean, you put so many years into your PhD program, so much effort to make a decision to move towards chess is a massive one. But it also speaks to just how much you were loving chess and helping others with it.
Can:Yeah, it was always there, always, love was always there, even my colleagues on PhD, I mean, they bought me some chess pieces involving ravens and birds I mean they knew the passion was there. It was always there. My life story is around chess mostly I mean they knew the passion was there. It was always there. You know, Like my life story is, around chess mostly. So this was a beautiful moment. I mean I cannot really thank the virus, covid virus but definitely it changed my life, at least for the good, for the moment, you know.
Daniel:Yeah, yeah, I hear you. I'm in a similar boat as well in terms of that time period impacting me a lot with my chess life. So you, as you referenced already, you already started. You eventually started putting more of your time into branching out with chess. Beyond just coaching, you moved into course creation with Chessable and, you know, eventually that led to its own big endeavor for you, where you created many courses with Chessable and still are. I'm curious, what made you want to focus on course creation? I mean, you know there's several different choices you can choose from in pursuing a chess career where you're helping others.
Can:Yeah for sure. It's one of those cases you know in life, like you replay the tape of life and it can go to whole different directions. You know, like, if you restart the tape of life, for example, like 600 million years ago, there is no guarantee whatsoever that humans will evolve in the end. It's one of those cases too. You know, one summer in 2021, I come back from Turkey for a vacation I see Simon Williams advertising create your own course competition on Chessable. You know, he's just advertising it. Like, for the first time, people can create their courses and then, if they pick it up, top eight will be published as a course.
Can:Of course, I was getting some accessible courses, I was studying some courses there, but it wasn't something that I was seriously considering. Before I saw that ad for the first time, I told myself, okay, I have one month to apply, let's see what happens. Force yourself, organize, apply and see what happens. Yeah, because I was already coaching by then, maybe around one year already. Yeah, so I already had some material. Of course, also because of those years of experience and accumulation of those games and so on, I hit some material. So I just told myself, okay, organize, learn how chessable works, learn how to create the course, which is actually not that easy, right? So that took a long time to even like figure out. You know how to organize a Chessable course. So then I applied like very close to deadline, I think I applied.
Can:And then the interesting thing is this the course was not picked as top eight, but Chessable team still liked the course and they still wanted to publish the course. You know, it was like again like replay the tape and maybe I wasn't here. So then the course was published by the end of 2021. It's called the Art of Exchanging Pieces. That was my first ever chessable course. I'm also very much into strategic part of chess, so exchanging pieces is quite beautiful to me, you know. It shows the true depth of chess and so on. So and then suddenly again just like ear to ear, it just organically grow across the years, people told each other, people gave amazing ratings to that course. They were even like I mean, this hidden gem of a course. Nobody knows about the author. Who is this guy?
Can:You know just gradually, gradually evolved, like you could see, the entire, you know, organic process of development. Again, nothing that I could expect, by the way. You know I had no expectation whatsoever. I applied and and because of that motivating feedback, of course, then I produce other courses. You know, it became the art of series, like art of pieces turn into art of series.
Daniel:Yeah, after four courses too yes, yeah, well, I imagine you must really enjoy course creation, or at least the results that come from them, considering how many you've done. I mean you know some people just do one, two or three, but you how many you've done. I mean you know some people just do one, two or three, but you've done quite a few beyond that, and you know sky's the limit on where you end up in a number of courses. So did you feel like that really suited you well?
Can:Yeah, as an academic, you know I like writing. I like to convey information in this medium of either writing or video production. I need to also make a system that is scalable, that I can give it to maybe other people other than my students. But of course, the main thought was how do I help my own students, how do I give them material that is really structured, that can really track certain skills so they can actually improve on that skill? So it's a combination of trying to help my own students, given what their mistakes were, given my lessons. Of course, that was huge. We can talk about that as well. You know importance of giving lessons so you can see their mistake types and so on. But also, yeah, finding that medium that I can speak to other people as well. You know that's just Chessable gave me that, the medium that I can write and convey the information to a vast amount of students in the world. I mean that was beautiful to see, yeah, that's fantastic.
Daniel:Like a publishing medium. Yeah, exactly, that's great. So not only do you have quite a few testable courses, but for those listening who may not know this, you also have won several awards for them, including Community Author of the Year and, most recently, in 2024, author of the Year, which I feel like correct me if I'm wrong I think is like the biggest, broadest award that they have.
Can:Yeah, huge yeah.
Daniel:So I'm going to ask you to kind of pat yourself on the back a little bit, and that's perfectly fine, but I'm curious to know what is unique about you and why do you? Think chess students really enjoy your work to the point that you're getting awards like this. What stands out about your courses?
Can:Yeah, again, it's hard to maybe praise myself here, daniel, but I will do my best, try to have my own hypothesis of why that's the case. You know, first of all, it's an amazing honor, it's such a humbling reward. You know, again, no expectations whatsoever, I mean, this year I got the award. I was like what, Like I had no idea, I had no expectations whatsoever. Yeah, so because, also, you know, there are so many big names like giants out there, like names like giants out there. Even Gary Kasparov was there this year. I beat Gary for at least one game I beat.
Can:Gary I can tell my grandchildren. So there are huge names as well. As a chess nerd myself, I was brought up with sometimes reading those giants like Jacob Agard, gary Kasparov and so on.
Can:So, it's an amazing pleasure and honor to be among them right now, and also it became the biggest publishing platform out there. Everybody publishes on Chessable, you know. So it's a huge competition as well at some point, yes, at this day and age. So that definitely is a humbling experience. But when it comes to your question, I think again it's a combination of academic background, my work with my students, and cognitive science background. You know, I'm really doing my best to structure it for best learning outcomes.
Can:I know where the students are. I want to meet them where they are currently so they don't get overwhelmed by complex information that is so beyond their level. Because we are sometimes, you know, at least when it comes to beginners, because I've worked mostly with beginners and, let's say, intermediate players I could see, you know, across four years of coaching, I could see their level, I could see what information was overwhelming for them and what should be structured, you know, blocked into chunks and so on, and explain clearly with connecting to why information and so on. So if I never gave coaching, if I never coach people, I will never win this award. You know, that's 100%. Sure, I can totally tell you that, certainly I will never win this award. You know that's 100% sure. I can totally tell you that that's certainly. I will never win this award if I didn't coach people regularly. So that organic process of me coaching people, seeing their mistakes, gathering positions that ultimately lead to Chessable courses with all the why, information and so on, is the key, I think, for that cycle.
Can:And also of course, chessable courses. People gave me great feedback on Chessable as well, the community as well on Chessable. They gave me great feedback, which you know leads to better courses in the future. Yeah, I also improve over time, of course, with that feedback, but it's also maybe about liking teaching. If you love teaching, then you're probably good at Chess and Walter as well. That's probably also one part of the story.
Can:I like to help people, I like to teach people. I like to break down complex information to something clear. You know I'm very much into this. How do I break it down so it makes sense for people? How do I explain this in plain english so it makes sense for people?
Can:You know, yeah, I'm always doing my best to to convey this complexity which is, you know, chess is one of the most complex sports out there. So, yeah, yes, and what we know from cognitive science is working memory is so limited in humans we have only, you know, seven pieces of information that we can think at a time. So if you look at chess beginner, they are immediately overwhelmed with this complexity. You know, they are immediately overwhelmed, like they are looking at one side of the board. They are missing out on other pieces on the other side.
Can:Yeah, very, very typical, for example, because they can only encode so much information at a time. So we sometimes as strong players, as grandmasters most likely as well they really really sometimes overestimate how much beginners know or how easily they can get overwhelmed. So that's the issue as well. I think I'm also advantageous there because I learned chess at a relatively late age. I think that's also my advantage here Because there are still some things that I can consciously recall. You know the process that I was going through that led to learning and improvement of certain skills which might you know, some grandmasters might take for granted because they learned them as kids, you know, yes, so that also could be one story here, actually in hindsight yeah, for sure.
Daniel:Lots of great reasons. Yeah, and it's just. I just want to congratulate you again on those awards, john and I mean it's clear to me why you won those I mean just talking to you, why you won those awards. Your enthusiasm for the game, your understanding yeah, it's really impressive and that's really exciting that you won those too. So huge congrats to you, and I hope you have many more coming.
Can:It's all born out of this passion, which never leave me, you know, and that's huge as well. Like if a teacher is passionate, I think students are also motivated, you know.
Daniel:Exactly. Yeah, I wanted to say that actually is one of the things that really stood out to me is your enthusiasm for the game, for talking about it, for being connected to it.
Can:Yeah, it's so amazing to see, even under a store, for example, jacob if you look at big guys as well, I mean they they still kept this passion and interest about the game. They can talk about the game like forever, you know. Yeah, that's exactly.
Daniel:I mean, I think that's an underlying common thread amongst the people who are best teaching. It is their love for the game is so strong. Yeah, absolutely so, john. We're getting into discussing your chessable courses. You know the awards that you've won and why you've enjoyed doing them, so now I'd like to dive into a specific topic within one of them, and it's your most recent course entitled preventing blunders in chess, which is a fantastic title.
Can:Yeah, very ambitious title. By the way, don't sue me please, guys, if you're still blundering. It is maybe all humans we blunder, right right, right, yeah, uh, limiting maybe, but maybe that's not as as not a sexy title.
Daniel:No right exactly but uh, in any case, yeah, I want to dive into that course. I want to talk about some of the ins and outs of it so people understand your work. But also I want to explore that topic for people because I can't imagine there's one listener who says no, no, no, I don't need any help with blundering, I'm perfect on that. So I just it's like so, yeah, I'm excited to get some insights from you on this and dive into it. So let's spend a little time on this course. So most chess players know that not committing a blunder is vital to do. They already kind of know that if they've been playing at least several months. But I don't know if they necessarily understand its importance in the ways that you do, because it's more than just so that way you don't lose the game. I mean yes, of course, but I thought when you described why it's important not to blunder in your course, you had some really great insights into why. So can you share a couple of those?
Can:Yeah, I mean, chess is one of the most cruel sports in the world, right? If you think about that, a single blunder at any moment in the game can erase all your other advantages. You know you can play 20 moves perfectly best game in your life. One little blunder and everything is lost. So it's purely because of this complexity of the game and, let's say, coolness of the game that we should work on blunder checking even more to raise our floor. Because if you think about that, most players like to increase their ceiling when it comes to chess improvement. You know they want to get maybe the latest course, maybe they want to learn 25, you know moves in theory, they want to memorize some moves, let's say, go in 25 moves in depth. So they really do their best, maybe do some real hardcore endgame work. You know Like they can improve their ceiling with such work, but surprisingly there aren't so many in the chess world when it comes to raising the floor exercises. So to my mind, you know chess calculation has three steps. The first step is whenever your opponent makes a move, you must ask yourself what would they play if I don't make a move right now? You must always start from seeing the threat first. That's one way that people make mistakes. Yeah, that's the first question. I already created chessable. Yeah, that's the first step. My opponent's last move, that was the entire topos of the course. Then comes second stage candidate move generation. You generate candidate moves that speak to the position and there are countless of books and courses written on this second stage. You know strategic thinking, all these ideas, of course. Yeah, before you make that move, before you play that candidate move that you come up with, you have to go through the blunder check process. That's, you know, stage number three in this three-leg cycle, and what it means is that you will make that move. But before you make that move, you need to ask yourself whether your opponent can defeat that move, whether your move changes things that allow a winning tactic for the opponent right? That's my definition of a blunder in chess. That's very opponent right. That's my definition of a blunder in chess. That's very specific right. That excludes, for example, the first stage that I mentioned. That excludes you not seeing the opponent's threat. That's a whole, separate and important, crucial process. But that's different than blunder, because blunder happens when your very move changes things that allows a winning tactic for the opponent, which wasn't there before. You know they don't threaten anything, but your very move allows that tactic. So these are, you know, two different processes. And, as Dan Heisman says, yeah, is your move safe approach? Is your move safe or are you playing hope chess? That's what he called Dan Heisman. He calls this hope chess.
Can:People come up with a candidate move, they play it, hoping that it's safe, right, hoping that the opponent doesn't punish them. But usually they are punished. So this was borne out also from my own work with my students. I have to give them something right, because I keep seeing those kind of mistakes, but for some reason there are not enough resources in the chess world that fixes this process. Yeah, so, yeah. So, since I already created one course for the first stage, this is just a finalizer. You know, the final course is about raising the floor and at least we are covered when it comes to these two crucial processes.
Can:Yeah, and both, of course, involve the opponent's resources, which is difficult for humans. Yeah, because then wishful thinking kicks in, confirmation bias kicks in. You know, we humans tend to look at bright side of our ideas, but this process involves a mental shift, complete mental shift. You start searching for the best move for your opponent against your move, right. This whole refutation mindset must kick in. By the way, this blunder check process resembles the scientific method the most, because that's also what scientists do. Scientists don't seek for confirming evidence. They seek for counter evidence from the world before they accept a hypothesis. Right, like they actively search for potential refutations of their ideas before they accept a hypothesis. Just the same process also takes place when it comes to blunders. You come up with a certain move, but before you play the move, you have to go through a certain process. Maybe we can also talk about that. Maybe clamp process I came up with, but also your question.
Daniel:Yes, yeah, we'll get to that for sure. Yeah, clamp process I came up with, yes, also your question. Yes, yeah, we'll get to that for sure. Yeah, yes, yeah. So that's that's all great insights, john. You know, I want to kind of make a case for why someone should spend hours and hours learning how to not blunder because, like I said, I think a lot of players are even starting at the beginner level. They know try not to blunder, and somewhere along the way, I think a lot of club players also learn that one of the best ways to do that is to look for checks, captures and threats.
Daniel:Yeah, and I just want to understand why it's not enough, or maybe, you know, not top not perfect yeah, it's not perfect to just say to yourself okay, remember checks, captures, threats like why should we go beyond that and spend hours in your course?
Can:Yeah, so it's a huge question, of course. So to me, checks, captures, threats is not a terrible idea. It can help for some players at a certain level and also some positions might give you good results by purely applying check, capture, threat search. If you feel like, for example, the position is very tactical, if you feel like there is some tactic in a position that you cannot easily find, you know, even like going through this process systematically check, capture, threat might help you find the best move. I'm not saying it's all you know nonsense to do so, right, yeah, but if you blindly apply that process to every single move, then you will lose on time because it's a very unstructured process as well, especially the threat part. You know what is the threat. Yeah, when you look at a position, can you instantly identify all the threats on the board? It's so hard because it's lacking a concrete target. Yeah, because we have more target when it comes to checks. Yeah, because we know where the king is, so it's easier to you know. Make it more concrete to see the checks. But what's the threat? What's the threat you know? Right, so this was born out. Also, captures is a little bit too generic, you know like you start randomly looking at every single capture. Most captures doesn't make any sense. Yeah Right, exactly. Even there, you know, I have some problems to understand, like, at least when it comes to scalability of things, when it comes to giving a recipe to all kinds of chess players that they can apply. It's also not perfect, for sure it has to improve, right. So this was also borne out from this search, for I should give them something that is more concrete. It lands on more concrete targets that they can check to quickly blunder check their moves. Now, of course, you can apply this same clan checklist for attacking contexts, right, that's the transferability of the course. It is also quite good, because if you fix this process, if you apply this checklist, then also you can punish the opponent's blunders by the same token. Yes, so it was born out from this. Basically, I just okay.
Can:What are the cues from the chessboard that signals a blunder? When do tactics take place? When do tactics emerge? Chess, usually, right. Of course. We should start with c, by the way, because when your king is exposed, right, you're about to make a move, but your king is exposed lacking pawn cover. Always you should ask yourself am I allowing a check to the opponent if I make that move right? That's a crucial question. Checkmate ends the game. So definitely not every single move. When your king is safe, that question is also irrelevant. But when you feel your king is stuck in a standard open lines against the king, yeah, ask yourself if I make this move, am I allowing a check to the opponent? Yeah, letter C.
Can:Then comes L loose pieces and squares in chess. L Because if you think about that, most chess tactics emerge from loose pieces on the board. Right, as John Nunn says, loose pieces drop off and it's targetably scalable. I can tell you every single loose piece on a board at all times. You know, we can clearly see those loose pieces.
Can:And loose pieces are defined in my course as pieces having equal number of attackers and defenders. For example, a bishop is one attacker but also one defender. That makes the bishop loose. At that point, if it's zero versus zero, it's also loose piece. Yeah, because loose pieces are also expose yourself to double attacks or remove the guard tactics. There are some chess tactics that are associated with loose pieces. That's a great insight. Yeah, I like that Also. Squares can become loose in chess right. Imagine a back rank, let's say a particular square on the back rank, that is, zero attackers or zero defenders, but then you start attacking that square. Yeah, it can lead to checkmate, for example. So we can also think about particular squares, empty squares on the board that can become loose or even hanging in my course. Yeah, so L is the second stage. Of course it's a huge stage and of course most blunders happen because of L. Again, as I said, let's say you move a bishop to attack something, but you don't ask yourself what that bishop move unprotects, right?
Can:Your bishop was guarding, let's say, a particular square and you moved it and that square became hanging and that was a blunder. Right, the opponent punishes your move because of that. The humans, again, we focus on the things that our moves do and we often ignore what our moves no longer does. Right, it's called second order effect or secondary effects of our move. Human cognition. You know, because we tend to look at, yeah, the bishop does something there, but nobody asks what the bishop no longer does on that square. Yeah, but that's my whole point. You know, before you create a loose piece on the board, you must tell yourself hang on a second. You know that should serve like a trigger, Trigger, you know, that's enough for starting the whole process of blunder checking, because if you take a step back, if you see that trigger, there's a much higher chance that you spot the blunder at that point, yeah, yeah, again, very targetable, connecting to certain things on the board, loose pieces and so on. Yeah, and then, of course, followed by a alignments. Alignments involves vertical, horizontal, diagonal alignment. Also includes night fork alignments and pawn fork alignments.
Can:In this course I compiled everything as letter a and again, most tactics emerge because of alignments on the board, as you know, for example, pins, skewers, discover attacks all involve certain because of alignments on the board. As you know, for example, pins, skewers, discover attacks all involve certain alignments on the board, right, yeah, so if your very move creates a certain alignment between important pieces, trigger, right, you should just take a step back and ask yourself maybe that's a blunder, maybe you're allowing a skewer, for example, or like a pin, right? Or you have to also take into account existing alignments on the board, that you have to be much more careful, yeah, that you don't give a tactic to the opponent, for example. Again, it's targetable. It's targetable than checking for all kind of threats on the board, which is much more vague?
Can:Yeah. And then finally, m part is trappable pieces, in other words mobility restrictions. If you make that move, are you giving less mobility to one of your piece, thus it becomes trappable. The opponent can trap that piece. Yeah, because that involves a whole different kind of chess tactical pattern. Yeah, you cannot deduce a trappable piece from loose pieces or alignments. They involve separate processes. That's why they deserve a separate checklist letter. Right, sometimes you make a bishop move, but your knight becomes trapped. Right, it's not always the piece that you move that becomes trapped. So it's also on those topics that we also train yeah, so always vigilant about loose pieces or travel pieces.
Can:And finally, p is about past pawns, and they only work in endgame stage, mostly, when the past pawns become important, right Like, you make a pawn move, for example, and you allow a breakthrough, you allow the opponent's past pawn to become a queen. Yeah, many, many blunders also happen in the endgame because of such P parts that people don't see. They don't see the opponent's pass pawns becoming a queen, for example. Yeah, so in the end I thought for a long time. I think this clamp is the most comprehensive checklist when it comes to preventing blunders or maybe even chess tactics. If you have to summarize everything with five letters, I think this is the most comprehensive five letters that prevents them.
Daniel:Yes, I'm super impressed with it. I mean, it's brilliant actually in the ways that it goes beyond just the simplicity maybe oversimplicity of checks, captures and threats. It makes it more detailed, it makes it more helpful. I think it's a fantastic concept and I love that you have a whole course that allows you to train those ideas. But just one clarification on the P is that just past pawns or is it pawns in general, just past pawns?
Can:Just past pawns. Yes, it's only about past pawns. Pawns are important as well in the course, but they mostly connect to the L part. Yeah, because pawn moves always weaken something. Right, you make a pawn move and you weaken a particle square, for example, and that connects to this L part in our checklist mostly.
Daniel:Yes, I mean, even that alone, I think, is really helpful to remember that every pawn move weakens something Right and I, you know, I imagine a lot of club players forget that it's huge yeah. Just one other insight that I want to discuss in your course, John and that is something I noticed that you talked about in it which was that humans are pretty good at central vision, looking at like what's directly in front of us, but not so great at peripheral vision, and this fact alone causes a lot of blunders, and I just want to get your feedback, because if that's inherent in how we see things, how do we overcome it?
Daniel:Can we train to not?
Can:have that be an instinct. Yeah, it's hard. I even made a podcast episode about this subject with Professor Benjamin Balas. He's a professor in vision science, also a cognitive scientist himself in North Dakota University in the States. He's also a chess player. He writes blogs on lead chess. He's a great guy, so he explained to me as well from a scientific perspective.
Can:Indeed, so when it comes to people missing out on fianchetto bishops, sniper bishops, especially beginners, right, because they're on the periphery, they're on the side of the board and beginner's mind, as mentioned, can easily get overwhelmed by information on the board, easily get overwhelmed by information on the board. So beginners usually are good at focusing on the center of the board, sometimes on one side of the board. They miss out on other things on the other side. Yeah, board vision didn't develop yet for beginners and that explains most of their blunders. Right, they just don't even see the bishop on there. The board is too crowded, the board is too big for beginners, and that's also about human cognition. He even calls visual crowding phenomenon, which is a pervasive phenomenon in human cognition, fianchetto. If you think about that, fianchetto bishops are usually cluttered by other pieces. Yeah, right.
Can:There are kings rooks pawns. This is called visual crowding. When that happens, you don't even you notice them even less. So bishop becomes even more invisible. Purely from a scientific perspective, it's called visual something. That's why it's even more difficult to see such Stanford bishops from a human cognitive perspective or visual system perspective. But there's hope. The first hope is that knowledge is important. So now beginners know their limitations, so they should again actively zoom out before they make a move.
Daniel:Some sort of checklist again.
Can:Before they make a move, zoom out and make one final check. Look at the entire board one last time. Yeah, it can start slowly, it will feel weird, but if you do it consistently it will become your second nature remind yourself. Second good hope is this there's also scientific evidence that strong players encode information as single unit of chunks, so they have larger chunks of information. So strong players, even though when they are looking at the center of the board, they are noticing those fianchetto bishops even more. Their vision is improving as they can encode higher or more larger chunks in their memories than they don't even miss out on cyber bishops. Even though they look at the center, they can still notice these things because of years of experience. They've seen so many similar patterns before and they can even see those things. So their vision is changing. Their perception is changing with expertise, with accumulation of chunks across the years. So that's a good.
Daniel:Second, good thing that will help eventually. Yeah, that's fantastic, great insights. So yeah, I mean, john, as you can probably tell from my questions and the way I described it, I did go through some of your course on.
Daniel:Blenders. Yeah, and I think it's fantastic. I had trouble pulling myself away and saying, okay, I've done my research because I wanted to just keep learning from it, because it was so good. So, yeah, congrats on creating an awesome course. I recommend everyone check it out. I'll have a link in the show notes that will link to that so people can get it. And yeah, I couldn't recommend it more highly. I think it's fantastic.
Can:That's amazing, daniel. You know what's more amazing to me, even more motivating, when people tell me they're having all-time rating highs after going through my courses. I heard similar things from both for Blunder Check but also for the first step. You know my opponent's last move Recently also, I've heard from four or five people only week that they're having all-time high ratings after going through those raise the floor courses. Raise the floor. That was the entire point. The whole claim is this If you start raising your floor, your rating will see the effects. You know that explains most of your losses in your games. So that's my hope.
Daniel:Yeah, that's fantastic, that's great news. I can hardly imagine motivating.
Can:It's amazing. It's amazingly motivating as an author to have such feedback.
Daniel:Fantastic. Just one last comment slash question on your course, just a small one. Up to what level would you say is your course helpful? Yeah, good question.
Can:I mean all the way from even 800 to 2000 was the main major range, because there are difficult levels of 40 different difficult levels. Yeah, it starts from level one all the way to level four, so everyone can see some value in those final puzzles. But I even heard like from one beta tester he was around 2,000, even more than 2,000. And he told me that he even benefited from the course. Some puzzles were still challenging for him and his mental framework has shifted. Yeah, the entire clamp method was new for him as well. So new for him as well. So now he's also trying to incorporate that when it comes to his game as well. So I heard good things about it as well from plus 2 000 players overall, that's.
Daniel:That's amazing. Yeah, so pretty. I'd say probably at least 99 of my audience could benefit from it. That's great yeah yeah, so next topic I'd love to discuss with you, john, is your youtube channel. That's another big part of what you're up to. You have a fantastic channel. I know you. You launched it in 2023. Well, you know I not according to youtube's time stamp, but like you really put you made a big focus for yourself, beginning in 2023 for it.
Daniel:And I mean, given how many chess youtube channels are out there, what would you say is different about yours? What stands out about your channel?
Can:yeah, I would say again this very much educational, psychology-based, cognitive, science-based, you know, instructional value-based content avoids BS, avoids, you know, do this and reach 2,003 steps.
Can:Chess is easy kind of you know, bs things that are so pervasive on YouTube terrain. I want to avoid it as much as I can. I want to avoid it as much as I can, also knowing that thumbnail and title game is huge on YouTube, because when I try the other way around, nobody watches the video. So there's always you know this, let's say, tension between you. Create some content that is actually quite good and avoid BS, but also make it engaging in terms of title and thumbnail game. Right, I see, yeah, but if you really ask, like, what separates them? Yes, again, my teaching background, my coaching background, my work with my students and touching these deep connections, deep learning and also why information you know I try to break it down for my audience and really, really try to explain to them. So make it clear and concise and manageable. Yeah, so they don't get overwhelmed.
Can:I sometimes make videos and you know I still get some feedback from people because now expectations are much higher, so people even expect a lot from my videos. So sometimes they see some, but you didn't teach us that. I was overwhelmed at that point because that information wasn't really taught to me before and I was expecting this from you, so I even increased their expectations. Right now they want me to really, really go through every single concept, start from something very simple, build up gradually in complexity and deliver perfectly. If I can do it, of course that will be amazing. That's also my goal overall with my videos. Sometimes I cannot do it perfectly, but that's the aim overall To make it manageable for all kinds of different levels, beginners and new players, while always transferring my passion for the game as well, you know, to make it also fun for people to watch yeah, yeah, that's, that's fantastic.
Daniel:I mean, a couple things that you said stood out to me one I mean maybe this wouldn't sound like some place to lead from for promoting a youtube channel for chess, but it does to me which is that you said like no bs and just being more honest about you know expectations in terms of what people will get from a video where you know you're not, you're not overstating or overselling what can be achieved from that video and I see, I see that too much, unfortunately, in YouTube and not, it goes obviously it goes beyond chess as well and I mean I know that's got to be tough to balance with the other thing that you said is has been helping you, which is creating more compelling thumbnails and, yes, and titles for videos. I mean it's hard to balance that, like make it more compelling, but also still be honest. It is.
Can:It is so difficult, you know, and I still couldn't find a perfect solution after one and a half years. I'm still struggling with that. You know one side of me, because I, of course, I work with thumbnail designers. I give him some ideas, he creates my thumbnails.
Can:Yeah, sometimes he just push some flashy things you know, like something crazy, right, and like I don't need to bother, like working with him, like spending two full days about this thumbnail, or should I just, you know, publish it and see what happens? Sometimes I don't have time for as well. Okay, just accept what he gives me. But I know I I don't want to, you know, give false promises to people, and I think I now have this connection that people trust me as well as an author, as a coach, you know. So they also become maybe more forgiving, you know. Of course, they understand that that's not my intention, you know. You don't need to become some thumbnails. That is maybe too exciting, yeah, for the taste of some people.
Can:I think this level of trust has also been built because I respond to each and every comment on YouTube as well. Yeah, I respond, I answer to every single question on YouTube. That's huge. That's huge, yeah, and that also brings this organic, you know, audience across the years, right, yeah, which might also explain, you know why, why my courses are also doing well, because maybe those people are also getting getting those courses too. You know, they see the value across the years, yeah yeah, absolutely so.
Daniel:You have a video. Your most popular video right now, the one that's received the most views, is titled how Good Can Adults Get? Oh yeah, my first ever video.
Can:Terrible microphone quality, by the way. Terrible audio quality, but that became viral.
Daniel:I know how it feels. I'm sorry to draw attention to the video that that, like you, feel like isn't quite up to standard tech For people listening. If you check it out, it gets better over time in his videos, don't worry. But it's a great topic though, nonetheless, and just considering that it was most popular. I know maybe part of that is a little bit because of how long it's been on your channel, but I do think that that is something that every adult wonders at some point in their test improvement journey. So what's like a brief summary of how you answer that question in the video?
Can:Yeah, it's actually a huge question. Still, I think we don't know the full answer yet. There still needs to be more controlled scientific experiments should be done on this, given that this day and age of information overload in a way that there are much more resources these days when it comes to technology and space exploration and so on. So maybe that will change across the years as well. But I was basing the claims in a way that on one scientific study which was done maybe 20 years ago already, that looked at different levels of players. They asked them how much time they put on chess in terms of amounts of hours of study and how well they improved across the years, and one of the biggest conclusions was that if you start before the age of 12 of getting serious about chess, then you have much higher chance of becoming international master or grandmaster later on in life. But if you start after age of 12, then it's much less chance maybe like 2% chance that you become IM or GM.
Can:Yeah, that was like cut off line for some reason. We don't know exactly why, but there was some sort of a cut off line, more or less. But there are so many unknowns in that study as well, you know, for example, they didn't tell us what kind of chess activities they were doing. They only reported how much time onto chess. You know, we don't know how effortful they were looking at chess or they were just playing bullet chess. We had no idea. So there needs to be, more studies on this.
Can:You know about the quality of training Because right now we have amazing resources these days, so that master might change. But one conclusion was this If you start, let's say, after 12, if, if you do your best, then 2,000 plus, even around 2,000, is manageable, maybe like around 55% chance that you can reach level 2,000 as an adult. Imagine you start at the age of 30,. Let's say, if you just do your best, it's still possible. So there is not like impossibility there. But it depends on, of course, quality of training, which we don't know scientifically. More studies should be done on that. So, for example, space repetition, the role of maybe different courses, floor raising courses like mine, impact of different courses, potentially impact of different resources on people's chest strength. We still need to do so much more experiments.
Can:Even when it comes to the woodpecker method I was discussing with Che Guevara. He says we need money, you know, to understand how much. How many cycles give you the best improvement? You know? Is it one cycle or seven cycles? We have no idea. We need more studies.
Daniel:So but overall I think there's hope even for adults.
Can:Not that they can become grandmasters. I think grandmasters is still, let's say, to reach around 2,000, it seems to be doable scientifically.
Daniel:Yeah, and I mean I think there's a huge difference between how good can an adult become if they are starting at, say, club level-ish, between are they putting in a part-time effort or a full-time effort. That is right. And there's a huge difference between your potential, then right Between the two.
Can:Huge.
Daniel:And I feel like not enough adults appreciate that. I mean, how great do you think you can become at anything if you're only putting in seven to 10 hours a week? I mean, do you think you will master anything? No, I mean, you're not going to become a professional guitar player, a professional pianist. I mean it's not just a chess issue, Exactly. So that's a big part of it.
Can:I think it's a huge part of it. According to one estimate by Fernand Gobet, grandmasters know around 300,000 chess chunks. You know chess patterns. They store it in their long-term memory. 300,000 to become a grandmaster? You know it's huge. It needs effortful training across the years. You know it's huge.
Daniel:Absolutely years. You know it's huge, absolutely, yeah. The other point I wanted to make about this topic, because I think it's so fascinating, is that you said that 2000 is probably a reasonable upper limit. Let's call it upper limit.
Daniel:Let's say yeah, and I feel like that's fantastic news. Honestly, that's great. I feel like adult club players get maybe a little too hung up on the title issue. It's a little bit arbitrary to me in terms of like, oh, did I land at 2,400, 2,300, 2,200? I mean, I know a title is awesome, I know that that has like a great ring to it, but also in terms of how you can feel about your chess. Is there really such a huge difference in how you're going to feel about yourself as a chess player whether you're 2000 or 2100.?
Can:Exactly.
Daniel:And so I just feel like 2000 should be enough for 99% of people. That should be plenty to know that they could reach your thoughts on that.
Can:100%, I mean 2000, is an amazing number itself. That I'm not sure what I mean percentile, it puts you right. I mean it should be hugely high percent of people playing chess. So that itself is a great number to achieve. Not easy at all for adult beginners and improvers, right? So why do we randomly chase after titles A hundred percent, you know why that random number like 2,200? I mean it's just set by humans, you know. So yeah, what's the point.
Daniel:It's a human-made standard, it's not something intrinsically special. So, yeah, that's great's great news. Actually, I feel like 2000 is awesome. Yes, so, john, one other thing I wanted to talk about before we finish and get to my last segment of the interview is that you've also recently started a podcast, which I guess overlaps with your youtube channel, because it's on your youtube channel, but, of course, people can access it elsewhere. So, yeah, I mean, you're doing all the things, as they say. So, courses, coaching.
Can:I'm jogging many balls, many balls. Yeah, exactly it's really impressive.
Daniel:So yeah, if you would just take a minute to tell us a little bit about your podcast.
Can:Yeah, it's called the Chess Cognition Podcast, which I thought makes sense given my background, you know I had to give a name to it. It was born out from my quest of connecting with people in the world, you know, like from chess punks community, other coaches, grandmasters, you know. Because that was a natural progression across the years, I started my YouTube channel in 2023. After one year, I decided to explore both short but also longer content, and longer content obviously should involve me talking chess with some other great guys in the chess world. So it was just borne out from this. I even talked to Nate Solon. He was just okay, why don't we just discuss one time, you know, this podcast, not even podcast, but let's discuss whether Blitz is good for you. You know, that was just a random topic. Let's discuss one day whether Blitz is good for you or not. Okay, then the entire podcast was kicked off from that initiative by Nate Solon. Because, yeah.
Can:Then I thought, since I have this long content, which I plan to do maybe on every two weeks, bi-weekly, I can also maybe create one podcast for that, so it's on Spotify or other places Also can give me motivation and structure and discipline to continue doing that and talking to people and so far, yeah, I'm producing almost every two weeks and it's been doing great. I'm connecting to new people in the world. It's amazing, you know like, because, yeah, again, like two years ago nobody really knew about me and now I'm even, like more well-known, but also I connect to people through those podcasts. So it's kind of a win-win, multi-purpose move. But obviously I cannot compete with Ben Jenison or with you guys, because you're definitely putting all the resources there.
Can:I did it again not to really really maybe grow in the podcast business per se, but really diversify my YouTube channel and talking to people, because I know that that involves its own adult improvement. You know I can do my best to become a better interviewer. Host. English skills should improve. You know, segmenting flow of the conversations I mean, there's a huge art also when it comes to being a good podcast host, as you know. Right, right, yeah, but that's not my goal you know Still working on it myself, I know, but that's not my main goal.
Can:Still, my main goal is to talk, chess with beautiful people in the community, sometimes even scientific community, as I said, like Christopher Chabris and other guys, I sometimes invite we scientific community, as I said, like christopher, charlie and other guys I sometimes invite, we also talk about those links between psychology, cognitive science and expertise and chess and so on.
Daniel:Yes, that's fantastic. Yeah, I mean, you've had great guests on already and the uh, the topic of was it is blitz good for you. That's a fantastic topic. You just gave me an idea for a future episode, so I might I might borrow, let's unquote.
Can:Let's do it Exactly.
Daniel:Okay, yeah, so we've pretty much covered all like the big questions I wanted to ask you, john, about like from a typical interview standpoint, and I loved everything you had to share. Your journey is amazing and fascinating, and so are your courses and your YouTube channel. So yeah, I'm just super impressed with all that you're doing in chess. I mean you've just made a huge splash in the community. You're helping tons of people. Yeah, it's just really impressive.
Can:So humbling to hear your kind words, Really motivating for me as a coach, you know to hear this feedback.
Daniel:It's amazingly energizing, yeah my pleasure and absolutely mean it. So let's finish our chat with the last segment that I do with all of my guests, which is a series of rapid fun questions. You've said you've listened to my show, so maybe you've heard this before.
Can:I know I heard this before.
Daniel:Okay, okay, so now you get to.
Can:Let's see, I'm ready, I'm ready. I told about this the whole day. I was thinking about those questions today, daniel, so let's see. Awesome, awesome, okay, first one knights or bishops knights, because I'm a more strategic player, and knights like those, you know, quite strategic positions, slow maneuvering to the outpost. I think they really make the game more beautiful and complex, also strategically speaking. It's, it's beautiful nice, great.
Daniel:What's your favorite time control longer.
Can:Longer the better. You know, Ideally, I'm a thinker, I'm a philosopher, so two hours per player plus, you know, 40 extra minutes after move, 40 with 30 seconds increment if possible. Even adjournments if possible. But we don't live in the right time for that. Oh nice, Adjournments if possible.
Daniel:I think that's a first. I haven't heard that on the show yet. I like that Going old school.
Can:I like it. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Daniel:Favorite. What's your favorite opening to play as white? Catalan, nice. What's your favorite opening to play as black?
Can:Neidorf, on the condition that they don't choose crazy Bishit G5 variation against me.
Daniel:This is pure chaos. In one word, how would you describe your playing style? Strategic? What's one book you wish more chess players would read Under the Surface?
Can:by Jan Marcos. Okay, why that one? It's beautifully philosophical, deep, full of beautiful analogies that touches other aspects of life and chess, written by a beautiful author.
Daniel:great author, really great book who is your favorite player of all time I thought about this today.
Can:I think in the end it's vasily smyslov, because of his pure clean style. You know, clean, harmony style. He was a guy of harmony, peace, harmony, coordination. Beautiful moves, beautiful looking positional moves, you know plan making and games just an positional moves, you know plan making and games. Just an amazing guy to watch for me as a strategic player.
Daniel:I love it. That's a great answer. Because I'm always intrigued by answers that are less common.
Can:The most common is Gary Kasparov, or what?
Daniel:Yeah, carlson, or Fischer and Kasparov.
Can:Those are the three. Those are probably the three most popular, yeah, so I like when there's a name that I don't hear much.
Daniel:If you could play any great player of the past who is no longer alive, who would it be?
Can:I think it's Jose Raul Cablo Blanca. Right, I would like to witness his amazing intuitive style. You know this intuitive understanding and playing amazingly beautiful strategic chess and games and so on.
Daniel:Absolutely. If you could play any of the top players in the world right now, who would it be?
Can:This was not easy for me today. I thought about it for a moment, for a while, maybe Gukesh, I would say, because you know, I think I like his presence on the board, you know like very stoic, you know like a Buddhistic, like very you know.
Daniel:I think I will enjoy his presence on the board. You know this thinker, philosopher, kind of a yeah stance on the chessboard. I'd like that great answer. And the final question if a chess genie existed and could grant you any one chess wish, what would you wish for?
Can:this was also difficult, yes, I mean yeah, great question to end by. I think maybe it would be that it could make me very stoic on the chessboard so I don't get affected by what happened in the past or what will happen in the future Because I lost so many games against, let's say, grandmasters, stronger players in a better position, right, because then those toss kick in. What if I win against this guy? My rating will be amazing. Then comes a blunder, of course, right, or I make a mistake and that haunts me on the chessboard. You know that affects my decisions. I'm sort of haunted by the initial mistake and it affects my later decisions on the chessboard. So I wish I could be more like a stoic, like Buddhist person on the chessboard, you know, like staying on the zone at all times.
Daniel:That's a great answer. I have not heard that one before, but I think it's a really thoughtful and deep response. I love that one. Does that reflect something that you feel you're actively working on in your own game?
Can:If I ever go back to OTB, which is not given yet, definitely I think I will spend more time on that on that side of chess for sure it's right, right, yeah.
Daniel:Well, john, I love your answers to this segment as well, in addition to all the others that I talked about already. Yeah, I appreciate you. You know, giving some time to think about them all and uh, yeah, because a couple of them are not easy. Um, yeah, so I loved everything that you shared today. You're a fantastic guest. I love talking chess with you you're definitely one of those people.
Daniel:That is a challenge to limit our discussion to just one hour, both because of all you've accomplished and because I just love sharing the passion of the game with someone like you. So thank you so much for being on the show. I'm very honored that you're here and I just want to say thank you again. The pleasure is mine, daniel.
Can:It was a beautiful conversation. Let's do it again at some point. Yes, either in your podcast or my podcast. You know we are here, let's do it both For the long run.
Daniel:Yeah, let's do both Definitely.
Can:I would also like to get your experience across the years. You talk to so many people in the chess world. You know, one day I would like to host you in my podcast and you describe your experience in the chess world.
Daniel:You know like that will be a great episode too, to listen to your story. I'd be honored to do that. So, yeah, anytime, let me know. Cool, and yeah, it was great having you on John.
Can:Thank you so much Same here, and see you soon, daniel Thank you so much Thank you.
Daniel:Thanks for listening. This has been a production of my business Adult Chess academy, and that has a website with the same name. If you want to look for it, you can also find me being way too active on twitter by searching my username, lona underscore chess see you next week.
