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1:47

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2:44

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2:47

title. ah as I guess we'll be

2:49

discussing he also especially as he got

2:51

stronger started to use just. About those

2:53

have you heard my interview with Grandmaster

2:55

Sam Shanklin? Will have heard him discuss

2:57

and I'll be my you has discussed how

2:59

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3:02

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3:04

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3:06

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3:17

helps out Perpetual. Trust us for our guest

3:19

I think all of you listening or

3:21

quite familiar with his young. Man, he's

3:23

just been setting amazing record after amazing

3:25

record. Most notably, of course. Ah, he

3:27

was the youngest Grandmaster in the world.

3:30

Or at the age of twelve years,

3:32

four months, and twenty five days. But

3:34

even sense then, is been making astounding

3:36

progress. As a fourteen year old, his

3:38

already number ten in the world. For

3:40

juniors, he is an outlier among outliers.

3:42

There's no one under seventeen in the

3:44

top ten aside from him arm somehow

3:47

he's also an author. I really enjoyed

3:49

his book How I became the youngest

3:51

Grandmaster in the World, which came. out

3:53

last year with new in charge of kind

3:55

of a blow by blow account of all

3:57

the work that goes into ah these amazing

3:59

feats And he's

4:02

accumulated so many accolades, I can't list

4:04

them all. But suffice to say, I'm

4:06

really excited to welcome to the program,

4:09

Grandmaster Abhimanyu Misra. Welcome, Abhi. Hi, Ben.

4:11

It's a pleasure to be here. Yeah,

4:14

I'm really excited to chat with you. Just

4:17

incredible progress. And

4:19

the thing that strikes me, and this has

4:21

struck me for a long time, as obviously

4:23

a big fan of chess and someone who's

4:25

sort of seen your story develop over the

4:27

years, is your work

4:30

ethic really stands out. And I'm a dad, Abhi.

4:32

I've got two kids. And I can't get them

4:34

to do much of anything, you know? But

4:37

meanwhile, you're studying chess like many

4:39

hours a day. You're also fulfilling

4:41

academic requirements. So I'm curious, Abhi,

4:43

like, what motivates you? What is

4:45

it about chess that gets you to put in

4:47

such hard work to have achieved all that you

4:50

have so far? Yeah, chess

4:52

is an amazing game. It mirrors life in a

4:54

lot of different ways. It mirrors

4:56

math, decision-making, analytical skills. It helps in

4:59

a lot of different fields. And

5:01

other than that, I have this desire to be

5:03

the best in whatever I do. So that's another

5:06

factor that encourages me to push forward. And

5:09

are there days? I mean, obviously,

5:12

I also love chess. But nonetheless, as like an

5:14

amateur, you know, decent player, there are days where

5:16

I don't feel like doing it. Do you have

5:18

days like that, or are you just always raring

5:20

to go? Well, yeah, of

5:22

course. These days happen once in a while,

5:24

but I always have some short-term target. Like,

5:27

for example, as of now, my short-term target is to break

5:29

2700 Dilo another

5:31

year or so. I want to make

5:33

sure you're hoping to be the youngest super GM

5:36

in history, correct? Yes. So these goals help me

5:39

work throughout the day because, okay, one day

5:41

means a lot in terms of

5:43

chess progress. Yeah. And I'm

5:45

sure, Abhi, one thing that impresses me in

5:47

reading your book is a lot

5:49

of people from your generation aren't

5:52

necessarily reading books as part of their chess

5:54

regimen, but you seem to have a very

5:56

wide range of chess interests. Yes, you read

5:58

books. Obviously, you're working with an engine. got

6:00

top coaches. But out of all these resources,

6:02

Abhi, what do you do today to study

6:04

chess now that you've reached the 26, 27

6:06

level, which is just astounding? Yeah,

6:10

as of now, I use many different things to

6:13

train. One of the main things

6:15

I do while trading is I like to

6:17

look at top Grandmaster games and I try

6:19

to improve. So

6:22

usually there are top Grandmaster games going

6:24

on. I like

6:26

to look at classical games as they have the

6:28

best quality of mistakes from top

6:30

players. And the good thing with chess is that it's

6:34

such a vast game that no

6:37

matter how strong you are, you still make mistakes.

6:40

And I like to look through these mistakes and

6:42

try to solve these collisions myself, try

6:44

to compare them with what I was thinking and how

6:48

I can fix these top players' mistakes so

6:51

that in my own play I would be

6:53

able to solve such situations in a better

6:55

manner. That's

6:57

interesting. And what's your approach? Do you

6:59

have the engine on when you were reviewing the games? How

7:02

much time do you spend per game? I'm curious about the

7:04

details. Usually my dad has

7:06

a list of these games beforehand. He's engine checked

7:08

them all and he gives me

7:12

some positions which I set up on the board and I spend

7:14

like, let's say, 10-15 minutes because

7:17

realistically you could also spend three hours, but

7:20

you wouldn't be able to, in a practical game, you

7:22

need to be able to mirror the circumstances. Spending

7:25

three hours over the board and finding the actual

7:27

best move is not going to be helpful in

7:29

the long run. I like to spend 10-15 minutes

7:31

as it's very practical. Okay,

7:33

so he selects positions for you. And

7:36

are they... So one thing that comes up

7:38

a lot when we talk about chess improvement here

7:40

on the podcast is if you only solve

7:42

tactical puzzles, you're

7:45

kind of over-optimizing for one particular thing and

7:47

you're not mirroring what

7:50

an actual competitive game is. Obviously, this is not

7:52

something that you don't know. So

7:54

I'm curious, is it all tactical puzzles

7:57

or is it just random positions that

7:59

he selects? It's just random

8:01

positions where top players have messed

8:03

up. Like, top players, okay,

8:05

it doesn't necessarily have to be 2750

8:07

plus, it's like usually any good

8:09

turbine, let's say 2600 plus, 2650 plus. Just

8:13

any position where they've messed up and Enjin

8:15

thinks one player could have done better. Okay,

8:18

and from reading your book, I know

8:20

that your dad is a chess enthusiast,

8:22

and I was impressed with how his

8:24

knowledge of the chess world, obviously necessarily,

8:26

has expanded as your

8:28

chess has skyrocketed. But how strong

8:31

a player is he, or is

8:33

he just relying on shifts in

8:35

the Enjin eval to find the

8:38

positions? Yeah, he's like

8:40

a 1300 rated player, let's say, in USDF terms.

8:46

But yeah, he usually uses engines

8:49

to find these positions. Okay,

8:52

and obviously you're putting in many hours a day,

8:54

so of the hours

8:56

that you study chess, how big

8:59

a component is the process you

9:01

just described, Abhi? Maybe this is

9:03

around 20%. Okay,

9:05

so what else are you doing? Other than that,

9:08

I really go through all areas of the game,

9:10

like calculation is another big thing

9:12

I do. I find some puzzles or the

9:14

other. It's always useful to train because, okay,

9:16

it'll help me see things faster, and

9:19

it'll help me see more complicated things. Other

9:21

than that, I like to go through some endgame, polish

9:25

my openings a bit and so on. Yeah,

9:27

I was impressed in the book that

9:30

you mentioned being a big fan of

9:32

Endgame Magic, a recurring series by Grandmaster

9:34

Carsten Miller, because my experience as someone

9:36

who used to teach Scholastic players is

9:38

endgames often are not their favorite. Now,

9:40

obviously, you're not your typical player, but

9:43

I'm curious, have you always loved all aspects of

9:45

the game? Or was there a period in your

9:47

chess development where you preferred certain

9:50

parts of the game over others? Yeah,

9:53

there's times where,

9:55

of course, you don't necessarily love everything about

9:57

the game of chess, but... you

10:00

have to understand that at some point you cannot avoid

10:02

it. Like just because you can't go

10:04

to your opponent and tell me don't take me to this

10:06

kind of an don't tell me don't take me to an

10:08

opposite color bishop ending because I haven't studied that. One

10:12

day or another you're going to have that in a

10:14

classical game and you're going to have to face difficulties

10:16

on the board. So yeah

10:18

there's like for example in my in the

10:20

early period early stages of my

10:22

career I used to be very opening oriented and

10:24

this this meant that okay later on

10:27

in the game I was having issues like with middle game

10:29

and end game and of course I needed you

10:31

can't really like shy away from these issues you have to

10:33

work on them more that's told the way how to fix

10:35

them. Yeah I enjoyed the

10:37

part in the book where you mentioned one

10:39

of your coaches Grandmaster Magash

10:42

really saying okay I'm going to be his end

10:45

game teacher you know and then you had Grandmaster

10:47

Aaron also shout out to the Kings and Queens

10:49

Chess Academy in New Jersey who helped you a

10:51

lot focusing on openings.

10:54

Do you still have I'm sure you're you mentioned

10:56

on the c squared pod that you know you

10:58

may not be able to reveal all of your

11:00

coaches at this point but do you still have

11:03

different coaches working with you on different aspects of

11:05

the game? Yes okay yeah there

11:07

are many different aspects and okay I don't want to share

11:10

too much other than that. Okay

11:12

would you mind sharing like how often are you

11:14

meeting with coaches during the course of a week?

11:17

Maybe around two to three classes usually like

11:19

not with every coach but yeah like overall

11:22

in a week two to three classes. Okay

11:25

and that would be so four hours or

11:27

something in total? Sure yeah. Okay

11:31

and so what

11:33

is your and I'm guessing having

11:35

crossed the 2600 level your opening work

11:37

is now pretty much engine and database

11:40

driven? Yeah of course

11:42

nowadays you cannot the

11:44

days have gone where you can analyze

11:46

without an engine. Of course you

11:48

have there has to be some sort of a human touch that

11:51

many times engine will say some position is say

11:53

better for life but this

11:56

kind of position will be very complicated and

11:59

you have really no idea. what's going on. I

12:01

think one another big aspect of

12:03

opening preparation is making it practical that

12:06

for example if your opponent plays a wrong move

12:08

over the board you have some some clarity of

12:10

what is going on and you're able to punish

12:12

them. So

12:14

you need to make sure you don't entirely rely on

12:16

engine but it's it's it's a pretty good pretty

12:19

big component. Okay so

12:21

you're working on all aspects of the game

12:23

every day doing some game review of positions

12:25

selected from your dad and I believe

12:27

you said to Fabiano and Cristiano on

12:29

the C-square pod you're you're still attending

12:32

school but if I understood it correctly

12:34

it's like asynchronous basically it's like an

12:36

online school is that right? Yeah I

12:38

attended online online school. So are those

12:40

classes live or are they like you just have

12:42

to make sure you do the work at some

12:44

point? Yeah they're live classes

12:47

it's not too much like maybe a couple

12:49

hours a week but like more it's not

12:52

like anything like it's

12:54

also another parallel front but I lost

12:57

my energy goes towards chess. Okay

12:59

and but you feel like you're you're

13:01

able to keep up with the schoolwork

13:03

without uh okay yeah compared to these

13:05

rook endings I'm sure I'm sure it's

13:07

not uh not too hard

13:10

um and do you do

13:13

you are there any aspect of like not

13:15

being at a school that you miss? Well

13:19

of course there's a social element a little

13:21

bit but okay it's not it's not too

13:23

great like not that not that

13:25

big of an issue I have friends online anyways so.

13:28

Yeah that makes sense and I guess when you get out

13:30

to tournaments you get to to see a lot of your

13:33

your colleagues as well.

13:35

Yes. Okay and

13:37

so I feel like there's

13:40

still some hours in the day Abhi because

13:42

I know you're working hard that we need

13:44

to account for so maybe you could one

13:46

thing I'm curious about is like do you

13:48

have a structured schedule for your chess each

13:50

day or is it more like you know

13:52

you're going to be working on chess and

13:54

you'll kind of just switch things around in

13:56

order to fill that chess time. Yeah

13:59

there's still anything. structures, like, as of now,

14:01

okay, I don't really have too much of

14:03

a schedule. But it's, it's more

14:05

of what's, it's also very

14:07

time based. Like if I have a term in

14:09

coming up in, say, like two, three weeks, it'll

14:12

be very different than, for example, when

14:15

I when I don't really have a term in on the horizon.

14:17

Like if I if I have a term in on the in

14:21

the in the in the near future, I

14:23

will be studying opening and such such

14:25

things much more. Okay,

14:28

and like, for example, right now, we're recording

14:30

on January 5, your next

14:32

tournament, as far as I know,

14:34

the proc masters in February. So

14:36

probably you're not emphasizing that much

14:38

yet. Yeah, I'm not emphasizing opening

14:40

that much. I mean, they trying to improve my

14:43

quality of play. Okay, and

14:45

one thing I've noticed about you,

14:47

Abby, you've got a sort of

14:49

retro approach to chess, a in

14:51

your book, your

14:53

enthusiasm for books that I already mentioned,

14:55

but I also don't see as much

14:57

emphasis on like online speed chess as

14:59

someone like Nihal Sarn or

15:02

Ali Reza Faruja even might

15:04

have showed in their teen years.

15:07

Is that a conscious choice on your part? Yeah,

15:10

it's one of the one things that

15:12

I don't really like playing online in

15:14

general. Like the time controls are very

15:16

short. And the main thing for

15:18

me is playing classical chess. And it's where I

15:21

like to think more in general. So yeah, these

15:24

online online things I play once in a while for

15:26

fun, but not not as I don't think they help

15:28

me too much in terms of improving

15:30

my strength. Okay, and obviously,

15:32

when you were coming up as traced in

15:35

your book, you played a

15:37

lot, especially like, you know, you

15:39

played whatever you could, in

15:41

addition to a hardcore studying schedule, but

15:43

now that you don't want

15:45

to play just any tournament, you've

15:48

got like a decent size hiatus, as we

15:50

just discussed right now, like does it feel

15:52

odd to you to not compete for six

15:54

weeks straight or whatever it is? Yeah,

15:57

it feels a bit odd. It's also like slightly

16:00

like relieving a little bit in a sense

16:02

that okay, there's not immediate, immediate

16:04

games every day. But

16:06

yeah, a lot of training is going on. So it's not

16:10

all the time is being taken up anyways. Okay,

16:12

and do you ever play training games? Yeah,

16:15

I played some online and so on these are

16:18

like maybe a couple games a day, but

16:20

okay, not not like hundreds, not hundreds of

16:22

lids games every day and so on. Okay.

16:24

And are those those are just sort of

16:26

like you're entering the blitz pool? Are you

16:28

like arranging games with or playing your trainers

16:30

or like, who do you play? Well,

16:32

yeah, usually it's like in some some random

16:35

some websites, some pools, just

16:38

spelling to come on. Decent, yeah. And obviously,

16:40

I know that you don't want to say

16:43

too much about what your accounts are, you've

16:45

got to got to workshop some openings. Understandably.

16:50

So, so

16:53

not much blitz. And now

16:56

a very varied approach. But would you say

16:58

that you have like core beliefs about what

17:00

the best things to get better at at

17:02

chess are? Yeah,

17:05

so this is like a process to get better. Yeah,

17:08

like, what do you think are the most important

17:10

things? Like what I mean, a that got you

17:12

to where you are, but even just generally. Sure.

17:16

I think this, this

17:18

is, of course, a very difficult problem. And it's

17:20

it varies from person to person. But

17:22

I think the best approach would be to

17:24

find your problem areas. This can be done,

17:26

for example, by analyzing your games. Every

17:29

game you play analyzing that finding where you

17:31

went wrong, why you went wrong. Because

17:34

one thing with chess is it's not loss based.

17:38

Yeah, everything, every mistake you make has a

17:40

reason. And it's, it's a skill issue

17:42

in some form or the other. If,

17:44

for example, you say I messed up in time pressure, there's

17:46

two problems with that. First of all, why

17:48

did you get into time pressure? And

17:51

secondly, even while being in time

17:53

pressure, you should be able to see these things. Like

17:56

there's, there's always a room to improve,

17:58

it's my point. So. Finding where

18:00

you're struggling the most and then working on

18:02

that in a dedicated vendor is one

18:05

way to improve quickly. Okay.

18:08

And then you're obviously, in

18:10

order to do that, you're using a wide variety

18:12

of tools as all

18:14

of us are these days. And

18:17

speaking of which, so we've got a question from

18:19

a supporter of the pod. This is from Brian

18:22

Karen. And

18:24

he's also, Brian's a big chess fan

18:26

and has noticed your, if I

18:28

may call it, like an analog sort of approach. Obviously

18:30

you're using digital tools too. But

18:33

Brian asks, he says, can GM

18:35

Mishra share his insights on the

18:37

comparative difficulties and advantages faced by

18:39

prodigies over a century ago compared

18:41

to the contemporary era? Specifically, he'd

18:43

like to hear you discuss where

18:45

you believe the challenges were both

18:48

more formidable and more manageable, say 100

18:50

years ago or even if you just

18:52

compare it to young Morphe,

18:54

Capablanca, or Fisher. I

18:57

know you know your chess history. So what do

18:59

you think, Abhi? Yeah,

19:01

this is a great question. Of

19:03

course, technology has played a huge role.

19:06

It's one of the upsides of

19:08

the modern era that nowadays

19:10

everyone has access to a 3500 engine

19:13

and they can, all you have to do

19:15

is just input a couple pieces and click enter and

19:18

it'll give you lines, it'll give you exact evaluation

19:20

of the position, what should be done and so

19:22

on. If you think of

19:24

Fisher's era, I think there

19:26

were stories that he bested up

19:29

a roof ending or something and

19:31

he spent months analyzing this roof ending and just

19:33

becoming better at roof endings in general. This

19:37

was frankly amazing for me. Another

19:41

key difference is to access

19:43

the information. Nowadays, all the information,

19:46

it's very simple to find, for example, opening

19:48

courses and everything online. Everyone

19:50

has so much more access to information. Well, back

19:53

then, I think the top books were in

19:55

Russian. So

19:58

Fisher learned Russian. This

20:01

shows how much dedication he had towards

20:03

the game of chess and it's

20:05

the reason why he was Fisher. I

20:08

love Fisher's Worth Ethic and it's one of the

20:11

things I tried to mirror in my everyday life.

20:14

Like for example, once upon a time I

20:17

lost this double bishop ending that was around let's

20:20

say 5 years ago, I was like 9, 8, 9 years old. I

20:25

asked my dad to find some relevant material

20:28

on this topic and there was of course, there

20:30

was nowadays with the internet there's

20:33

always there's like unlimited amount of, unlimited

20:37

amount of information. So

20:39

he found this game I believe it

20:41

was between Ganguly versus Wangkao and

20:45

it was also very

20:47

good because this game was annotated by Ganguly

20:49

himself who played the game and won and

20:51

he was explaining his thoughts throughout the game.

20:54

I put the game on the

20:56

board and I spent 5-6 hours and I

20:58

went through the whole game and next

21:00

time I got a double bishop ending it made my life

21:02

a lot simpler. I

21:05

love that story and is that typical for you because

21:07

again you do mention playing through a lot of games.

21:09

Are you often putting it on the board or will

21:11

you often just sit there with your feet up with

21:13

a book or somewhere in

21:16

between using a digital interface? Usually

21:18

I put everything on the board. I'm quite old fashioned. Okay

21:21

and you know that comes up, you know

21:23

I've, the perpetual chess has a

21:25

lot of adult learners who've sort of come to

21:27

the conclusion that that might help with muscle memory,

21:30

it might help you retain things better. Was

21:32

that something that sort of was preached

21:35

or suggested by your dad or

21:37

a coach or is that just a personal preference of

21:39

yours? Well it's kind of

21:41

both but yeah, from the very early days I've

21:43

been accustomed to the board rather

21:46

than a machine and yeah most classical games are

21:48

over the board so maybe that has

21:50

some kind of impact there too.

21:54

Okay yeah and again you've got

21:56

a shared love for chess books

21:58

so even when you're reading

22:00

books, like I think you mentioned, I think

22:02

it was to Fabiano and Christian, you mentioned

22:04

recently, having read Think Like a Super GM.

22:07

When you go through a book like

22:09

that, again, is that one,

22:11

are you is it always on the board, always old

22:14

school? Or do you are you sometimes doing it differently?

22:17

Yeah, like 99.9% of the time, it's

22:19

on the board. Okay,

22:21

and as you reach the 2630 level,

22:24

is it harder? Do

22:26

you are you reaching a point where it's harder

22:28

to find books that can help you? Or are

22:30

you still reading just as much as you use

22:33

other tools? Yeah, books

22:35

are always useful. There's

22:38

always some some good book or the

22:40

other by renowned Grandmaster. Another

22:42

good thing is that these books, one

22:44

thing with me is that if one thing with

22:46

me is that if I if I get a

22:49

book of say, like 100 positions, even

22:51

if 10% of those positions make me struggle,

22:53

I'll consider it a good book. Okay.

22:55

So another reason why I pick up

22:58

books from renowned Grandmasters is that there

23:01

are many different solutions, like there's one solution

23:03

to a problem, but there's many different angles

23:05

of looking at it. And

23:08

I like to see that even if I solve

23:10

the position, how these other Grandmasters are looking and

23:12

approaching the same problem. That's a great

23:14

attitude. We'll be right back with

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we are back. So

25:30

what have been some of your most formative

25:32

books over the years, Abhi?

25:36

Yeah, I think like Devretski's Endgame Manual was a

25:38

pretty good book. I think

25:40

like the lower level Jeremy

25:42

Stillman had an Endgame book that was

25:44

also quite useful growing up. Other

25:48

than that, just

25:50

trying to remember there were a lot of different

25:52

books. Well, before you go on, let me ask

25:54

you about Devretski's Endgame Manual because it comes up

25:57

fairly frequently here on the pod. you

26:00

know, Hikaru, who I got to interview

26:02

some years back, mentioned that he thought

26:04

it was indispensable for say 2300 on

26:06

up. But a

26:08

lot of trainers recommended for lower rated players

26:10

and they might struggle with it. So what

26:12

level were you be? Obviously, again, caveat, you're

26:15

not the typical chess student. But what level

26:17

were you when you got your hands on

26:19

that book? I started doing

26:21

it like, I think I started doing like

26:23

the King Paul Endgame section when I was

26:26

like 1700. But okay, from there, I realized

26:28

how complicated it was, I started actually

26:30

finishing the rest of the book around, let's say,

26:32

2300 around 2324 hundred. Okay,

26:37

so that jibes with a card recommendation. And

26:39

did you go through it cover to cover?

26:41

Or like, what was your approach to that

26:43

particular book? Yeah, I went through every

26:45

single position again, so that's everything on the board.

26:47

And it was the time of pandemic. So okay,

26:49

so I had a lot more time on my

26:51

hands. And I was just making sure I did

26:53

everything properly so that whenever, whenever it opened up,

26:55

I would never miss it. I would never miss

26:57

the endgame win. Amazing. And

27:00

do you I know

27:02

you've used some chestable for your openings, but with

27:05

a resource like that within with the endgame

27:07

manual, like, do you how do

27:09

you make sure you actually remember, I mean, remember

27:11

the stuff that you learn? I

27:14

think one thing is like repetition might help

27:16

over a long period of time. But

27:19

I think this, like

27:21

one main aspect is that you're not supposed

27:23

like, well, with me, everything, whatever I do, I

27:25

don't try, I don't see the answer beforehand. Like

27:28

I tried to solve these positions from

27:30

the book, even though okay, even though it's a theoretical

27:32

position, I, for example, let's say, Vancouver,

27:34

I try to find the draw. Now,

27:37

if I'm not able to find the draw, okay,

27:39

that's fine. But after, after

27:41

then reading the solution, I'll understand

27:43

the problem much better than

27:46

opposed as to just seeing the solution in the first

27:48

place. So an emphasis on active

27:50

learning? Yes, yeah.

27:52

That's, again, commendable. It seems

27:55

like you were getting good, good advice from

27:57

from a young age. And Do

28:00

you think that you have

28:02

a particular skill that stands out? Like,

28:04

of course, Magnus is

28:07

famous for having this amazing memory

28:09

that his trainers highlighted from a

28:11

very early age. Hikaru, it was

28:14

his calculating and tactical prowess. Do

28:17

you feel like there's one skill of yours that

28:19

comes easiest to you, Abhi? Yeah,

28:22

that's a very interesting question. There

28:25

are many different things I try to

28:28

work on, like all the aspects. Maybe

28:31

one thing I'm decently good at is mapping

28:34

patterns from different positions. For

28:37

example, if I see some

28:39

structure in the game, I'll try

28:41

to map it to some opening ideas in

28:45

a different context. Okay,

28:48

that's interesting. To

28:51

me, one thing, just as an outside observer,

28:53

your work ethic stands out even compared to

28:55

the prodigies I mentioned. But

28:58

it's interesting for me to hear that you

29:01

work very hard, you put in a ton

29:03

of hours at chess, but it does seem

29:05

like from what you've said in our conversation,

29:07

there is some freedom within it. It's not

29:09

like two hours on tactics, two

29:11

hours on end games. It's like

29:13

what piques your curiosity within a given day, is that

29:15

fair to say? Well, of course, there's

29:17

always a mix of everything. I don't want to

29:20

just be working on end games the whole day,

29:22

because after a period of time,

29:24

it won't be too helpful. So

29:27

yeah, there's a mix of everything, but it's okay,

29:30

not too strict. Okay, and

29:32

what's your approach with your games, Abhi? You

29:36

mentioned in the book, I believe, reviewing

29:38

them without an engine, but I'm curious

29:40

how much time you spend reviewing each

29:42

game and how often you revisit your

29:44

games. Usually even

29:46

in the middle of tournaments, like

29:49

during the game, like these games are broadcasted

29:51

online and so on. So while

29:53

I'll be playing inside my game afterwards, by the

29:55

time my game is over, no matter what the

29:57

result is, my dad will have prepared it.

30:00

analysis of the whole game. So

30:03

whatever mistakes I made throughout the game, I will

30:05

accept them up on the board and I will try them again. This

30:09

is so that I can become better for the next day.

30:13

Wow, that's, that's, it's, go ahead. It depends

30:15

on the on the size of the game

30:17

and how many mistakes I've made. But yeah,

30:20

usually it takes maybe half

30:22

an hour to one hour. Not too bad. That's

30:25

not bad. And in the older days,

30:27

like, it was that typical,

30:29

like, throughout the last few years

30:31

of your chess development? Or was there

30:33

a period where you were spending more or less time reviewing

30:36

your games? But yeah,

30:38

throughout my chess development, I've always been spending,

30:41

I've been always putting emphasis on whatever mistakes I've

30:43

already made, because that's one of the best indicators

30:45

of where you can improve. Okay,

30:47

and then I'm guessing some

30:50

of your trainers are maybe reviewing your games as well.

30:52

Yes, yeah, they also help with this

30:54

decision, this process of finding out

30:57

where the where the issues are. And

30:59

do you find it a challenge? One thing I've

31:01

noticed is it can be easy to say, like,

31:03

you know, to drill down on a specific mistake

31:05

you make in a game, but maybe not necessarily

31:07

to notice a sort of broader pattern. Do you

31:11

have any advice for how to notice like a pattern of something

31:13

that needs to be worked on in your game? Yeah,

31:17

this is also quite interesting. There's

31:19

no like definite answer, per se. But

31:22

I think it's like maybe like

31:25

you'd have to kind of you have to look at the game with

31:27

fresh eyes and you'd have to

31:29

kind of compare that. Okay, this game I met this

31:32

was the mistake. This was a mistake. What

31:34

what is similar to this? What is different in this?

31:37

How can I get? Is this common

31:39

or is this completely different? Like it's not it's

31:43

not too simple. It's very simple to say this, but

31:45

it's much harder to actually implement this. But I think

31:47

yeah, you have to kind of look at these games

31:49

with fresh eyes and try to

31:51

see this is this is also where it helps

31:53

having a second person. Yeah,

31:55

a trainer or a teacher

31:58

or coach any any one can help with

32:00

this process because,

32:03

okay, they're less biased in some sort

32:05

of a way. Yeah, I was

32:07

thinking about that and bias because in one of the

32:09

interviews I saw with you, you highlighted

32:12

the point that even when you win, you still

32:14

made mistakes in the game and that it's important

32:16

to learn from those mistakes, not just the games

32:19

that you lost. But I

32:21

feel like humans have trouble with that. If you win,

32:23

you tend to put a sort of, at least I

32:26

tend to put a sort of like halo effect

32:28

over the game. And if you lose, it's like

32:30

you're a complete idiot. I'm a complete idiot. And

32:33

you know, everything I did was wrong. Do you

32:35

struggle with that? And have you developed any sort

32:37

of like systems, if so,

32:39

to sort of counterbalance that? Well,

32:42

one thing with another thing about chess is

32:44

it's a very volatile game. Like a

32:46

game can go for six hours. One person can

32:48

be completely winning throughout. And

32:51

at the last minute they mess up and it's a draw. They

32:53

even lose the game. So this is why

32:55

the result is not everything about the game.

32:59

Like the result doesn't speak to

33:01

the experiences during the game. Like

33:04

entirely. Right. So

33:06

yeah, it's like, I tried. Okay,

33:08

even if I win a game, that

33:10

usually makes the analysis more

33:12

pleasant. But other than that, it's

33:15

not too important. The

33:17

analysis of your Yvantrk game must have

33:20

been pretty pleasant. Well, yeah,

33:22

but then it's like, it's

33:24

so it doesn't you have to like, I had

33:26

to flip the board. And another thing is, okay,

33:28

my opponent's also made a mistake when I was

33:30

thinking throughout, like during that moment, how, how

33:33

to defend in their situation. That's another thing which I

33:35

do. If I have. Okay.

33:37

And do you have a favorite game that you played?

33:40

I think yeah, that Yvantrk game was quite good.

33:44

That was a very, very attacking game. I

33:46

sacked the piece in the opening and started,

33:49

started attacking through the central files.

33:51

That was a very nice miniature. Yeah.

33:54

And for listeners, you can see

33:57

Abhiman, you post-mortem analysis in a

33:59

post-game interview. I'll link to that

34:01

in the show description. It was a lot of

34:03

fun. Also, there was another really great game I

34:05

played against Levon Rodian. It

34:07

was a very, he's of course, he

34:09

was a legend. Like he was, I

34:11

think he was like top 10, top 15 when we

34:14

played the game in US championship. And

34:16

it was a very, it was very different approach.

34:18

It was a very positional game. And I, I

34:21

squeezed him and that was very, very, very good

34:23

game. Yeah, now

34:25

Abia, I know you've had so many

34:28

landmark successes that like from the outside

34:30

looking in, to me it

34:32

seems like it might be even hard to process, but

34:35

something like beating a legend like Aronian, like do

34:37

you ever just step back and think like, I

34:39

was reading this guy's following his games

34:42

three years ago and now not only

34:44

are you sitting across from him, but

34:46

beating him, like it's amazing. Yeah,

34:49

definitely. I've grown up

34:51

looking at his games, learning

34:54

from his annotations

34:56

on games and so on. It's like, it's

34:58

a dream come true basically. And

35:01

you know, you're so young. I mean, I can't, when I

35:03

was 14, trust me, I was

35:05

not beating Aronian. Like, do you have any,

35:08

do you have to sort of like

35:10

try to clamp down an urge to sort

35:12

of get too excited that

35:15

you did something well, because there's more that you

35:17

want to do? Like I'm curious how you balance

35:19

all the amazing things that you've done, whereas you

35:22

still have a goal, like to be the

35:24

first, you know, 27, to

35:26

be the youngest 2,700 player that

35:30

has to keep you working. Like how do you balance those things?

35:33

Of course, it was very nice on that day, but

35:36

as the term went on, okay, I realized that

35:39

just because you won that game, it doesn't mean that

35:41

all the future problems are also solved. You will still

35:44

have to face these problems. This

35:46

goal still remains. You haven't finished.

35:49

This is basically, this is like

35:51

a milestone. It's not like

35:53

chess, chess improvement in general is a

35:55

marathon and okay, we realized, okay, like

35:57

winning one game doesn't fix everything. Yeah,

36:02

amazing perspective for such a young man. So I

36:05

saw on your Twitter feed back in November,

36:09

you mentioned on C squared, it's your family

36:11

runs your social media accounts. A

36:14

picture of you chatting with honest Gary, and

36:17

I'm just curious, like players like that who've

36:19

been, you know, been through the wringer, they've

36:21

been top young players, and now they're top

36:23

players in the world. Is there any,

36:27

like, particularly memorable advice you've gotten from

36:29

anyone? The

36:31

best chess advice, well, it's not,

36:34

it's not advice. It's like a fact that

36:36

I've learned, like, throughout the years, is that,

36:38

okay, everything, every mistake you make

36:40

in chess is skill

36:42

related. It's not, it's

36:45

not due to some external factors, like,

36:47

okay, outside it was raining, so I

36:49

missed, I missed the sub. There's a

36:51

reason behind everything. That's interesting.

36:54

So yeah, taking responsibility

36:56

for your results. Definitely,

37:00

definitely a good lesson

37:02

to take hard, even if it's painful

37:04

after some losses. And

37:07

you mentioned, another thing you mentioned in the

37:09

book is that you were into martial arts

37:11

and soccer. Obviously, at the top level, it

37:13

seems like fitness has become a

37:16

bigger point of emphasis for

37:18

players like Magnus and Fabiano. I'm

37:21

curious, are you still into martial

37:23

arts and soccer, Abi? Unfortunately, no.

37:25

Nowadays, it's like full chess in

37:27

school. Oh, wow. That

37:30

makes me worry. So do you, so

37:32

my kids, I mean, they're younger than

37:34

you, but like days where they can't

37:36

go outside for recess, because it rains,

37:39

there's like this pent up energy, they're

37:41

just absolute lunatics. Do you

37:43

ever feel that way from doing chess all day?

37:45

Well, of course, I go outside. It's not like

37:47

I just stay confined within

37:49

this tiny room. But yeah,

37:52

it's not too much. Okay,

37:55

and do you think that stuff like that matters

37:57

for stamina? Or do you feel

37:59

like you're young enough? where you can play a long game

38:01

no matter what. It matters in the

38:03

long in the long run. Like, I mean,

38:05

one thing I'm doing to help this is they go outside

38:07

for a walk every day, just for a

38:10

while just just don't

38:12

do anything. It's also just a nice release. You

38:14

don't have to think about anything. Just walk for

38:16

a bit and then come back, come back inside.

38:18

It helps with stamina. But yeah, this is

38:21

another stamina is a very

38:23

crucial aspect of one of one's play. Okay,

38:26

and when you go for a walk, because

38:28

you hear people like Elle Fund always talks

38:30

about how he likes to go for walks

38:32

before his games. Even back in the day,

38:34

Josh Weitskin used to write about his pregame

38:37

walks. I'm curious though in the information

38:39

age, because like when I go for a walk, it's

38:41

like I try not to, but I'll be staring at

38:43

my phone the whole time. Or listening to a podcast,

38:45

obviously, that's kind of on brand for me. But

38:48

I'm curious with you, like when you go for

38:50

a walk, are you really able to like sort

38:52

of unplug? Or are you still like checking some

38:54

chests on your phone as you walk? Yeah,

38:57

usually I just I don't take a phone, I

38:59

just walk outside. I just immerse

39:01

myself in nature for this period

39:04

of time. Good

39:06

for you. That's admirable. Now,

39:08

Abi, on a separate topic,

39:10

I was reviewing your social

39:13

media feed. And you'd put your pin

39:15

tweet as an interview with Sabina Foiser

39:17

at the St. Louis Chess Club, where

39:19

you're relishing in your amazing performance at

39:22

last year's US Chess Championship as you

39:24

should have been. But she also asked

39:26

you about sponsorship. Obviously, it's

39:28

not cheap. You've got multiple trainers

39:30

traveling all over the world. Do

39:33

you have anyone helping defray costs outside

39:36

of your family? Unfortunately,

39:38

not like I don't understand

39:40

what was needed. Like

39:43

there's people like chess

39:46

players from smaller countries are getting 10 times

39:48

more to support that I am like I

39:50

broke all the national international records. I

39:53

think it might have something to do with how chess is

39:55

viewed in the US. Like we

39:57

as a nation think we don't really think of as

40:00

a sport. Like, in

40:02

my experience, I've noticed that chess is used as a

40:04

tool to gain to Ivy League colleges. So

40:07

people they're not really willing to go to the top level

40:09

and so on. So what happens

40:11

is that here, like, one

40:14

example of this is I had this, at

40:17

the age of seven, I broke this national

40:19

expert record. And during this time,

40:21

I like my parents, they applied to numerous

40:23

scholarships, no matter the no matter the thing,

40:25

no matter the cost, let's say like even

40:28

like two $300 scholarships.

40:31

And everywhere I was getting rejected. And

40:33

when we inquired like why, why this

40:35

was happening, we were being told that

40:38

they gave it to a player

40:41

who was rated hundreds of points below me,

40:43

but he was heading off into college.

40:46

So they're giving it they're giving it more emphasis

40:48

to him. Yeah,

40:50

that's, that's got to be

40:53

frustrating for sure. And even

40:55

now that you're the age you described, it's

40:57

if you're still not seeing

40:59

those opportunities. And yeah, and they're telling us

41:01

to apply after 10 years. Right.

41:06

And do you know, I mean, this might be

41:08

more for your dad to answer, but so

41:10

does he try to reach out to

41:13

sort of corporations or, you know, people

41:15

who've supported chess in the past? Yeah,

41:18

he's tried many different things. But unfortunately,

41:20

I've seen that even

41:22

after like

41:24

their countries where players they became I am

41:26

at the age of like 1516. And everyone

41:28

is like it makes headlines, and everyone is

41:30

so proud of this player and so on.

41:32

But here in the US, like for

41:34

example, after breaking this 20 year old world record,

41:38

like the state, the federal government, of course,

41:40

like the federal government wasn't doing wasn't

41:43

doing anything. And even the

41:45

state government, they they reached out

41:47

to us a little bit. But when we asked for

41:49

support and so on, they kind of displayed like

41:51

months of follow up, they didn't really

41:53

give anything. But

41:56

yeah, it's super frustrating. And like

41:58

as we record this news. It

42:00

just came out today that

42:02

Prague got another sponsor, you

42:04

know, like additional funding from

42:06

a billionaire and his company.

42:09

Yeah. And part

42:11

of it, I think, just from my perspective, there's

42:14

an infrastructure already in place in India

42:16

that makes it easier, I guess. But

42:19

it's no excuse. Another

42:22

thing I wanted to say since you're here is

42:25

just the way your breaking

42:27

of the Youngest GM record was

42:29

reported was extremely frustrating for

42:31

me, just as a chess fan. You

42:34

know, I mean, you were attempting to compete

42:36

during a pandemic. And

42:38

then you had like, you wrote about Nepo's

42:41

tweet basically

42:44

saying that there should be more stringent requirements

42:46

for when people get norms. And he didn't

42:49

flag this in any of the prior

42:51

attempts by other players to break it.

42:54

And then all of a sudden when it happened, he did. I'm

42:57

sure. Did that cast a pall over the experience

42:59

at all for you, Abhi? Yeah,

43:02

it was a bit. It was frustrating

43:04

for sure, because like

43:06

every hour, every article after that

43:08

point referenced this by the

43:10

way that world number two thinks that this

43:12

was not broken and very this

43:15

is not like, like it kind of took

43:17

away from my achievement a little bit. Yeah. And

43:20

that was the only way to attempt to

43:22

get titles, basically. Yeah.

43:25

At that point, OK, everything was closed and

43:27

I made my only option. The only place

43:29

in the world where tournaments were happening was

43:31

Hungary. So I went there, I

43:33

played 70 games in 77 days and I got the job done. Yeah.

43:38

And the book, again, well worth

43:40

reading, they chronicle in

43:42

the book how like you and

43:44

your dad just booked a one way flight. Like

43:46

we're going to stay here however long it takes

43:49

until we get this title. And as someone

43:51

who's recently written a book, Abhi, I was

43:54

really impressed with the quality of the writing,

43:56

the coverage of sort of your whole chronology

43:59

up to the point. of earning that title. And

44:01

I couldn't believe it because again, you're

44:03

I mean, you're 14 now you were

44:05

like 12 then. So I was curious,

44:07

did you did you write this?

44:09

Did your dad write it? Did you tell him and

44:12

he wrote it? Like, how did that I mean, I'm

44:14

impressed no matter who wrote it. But I'm just curious

44:16

what the what the process was like. Sure.

44:19

So the main thing was that I

44:21

kind of wrote it. But of course, the

44:23

words and so on, they were refined by

44:26

editors like they weren't like the vocabulary of

44:28

a 12 year old is not enough for

44:30

a book in general. Right.

44:34

I don't know for you, it might be an either

44:36

the 12 year old, I'm guessing it might be enough.

44:38

But it's different because I came out of a category

44:40

isn't like, I'm mainly

44:42

focused on chess. So I have like, I know a lot

44:44

of chess words and so on. But like beyond beyond

44:47

words that are used in chess books, I don't know

44:49

too much. Okay, you

44:52

mentioned Fisher, of course, legendarily having learned at

44:54

least passing knowledge of Russia in order to

44:56

read Russian books. I'm guessing these days, being

44:58

that you're a native English speaker, you don't

45:01

have to learn it. You don't have to

45:03

pick up any other languages for your chess.

45:05

Yeah, another another thing is okay, there's a

45:07

translator online, like the world is so much.

45:10

It's a much simpler for information. Yeah.

45:16

So another thing I wanted to ask

45:18

you about. So I know you have the prog masters

45:20

coming up, I saw that you're signed shout out to

45:22

New Jersey with the Pro Chess League. Is that correct?

45:24

You're gonna be playing Pro Chess League this year? Yes.

45:27

And do you know when that starts? I

45:29

think this might. I'm not entirely

45:32

sure about the dates. I think it might have been

45:34

around around the 30th. Okay.

45:37

Okay, so coming soon. Do you have

45:39

anything on your calendar passed to the

45:41

prog masters in February? As

45:43

of now, no, I've been I've been

45:45

requesting publicly for like, for

45:48

tournament invitations. And hopefully I'll

45:50

get something. I believe if I

45:52

get enough tournament invitations this year, I'll be able to cross

45:54

2700. Okay, yeah,

45:56

I mean, sky's a little bit as far

45:58

as I can tell. So I

46:01

was disappointed as a chess fan not to

46:03

see you in Wike

46:05

and Say, which will be underway by the

46:07

time people hear this. So

46:10

I'm guessing that there was

46:12

no opportunity presented to you there? Yeah,

46:15

we reached out to the organizers,

46:17

but unfortunately, I wasn't considered. That's

46:20

really disappointing. I played there in 2023, though. It

46:24

was a great event. It

46:26

was a nice experience sitting in the same

46:28

room as Carlsen, Dingler, and all

46:30

these other top players. Yeah,

46:32

I mean, it's an iconic tournament with so much history.

46:34

So hopefully, I would love to see you. I mean,

46:36

I would have loved to see you this year. But

46:38

barring that, I would love to see you 2025 and

46:41

many years beyond that. So

46:47

do you guys consider playing in sort

46:49

of these American weekend Swisses? I mean,

46:52

some of them are pretty strong. Are

46:55

you mainly focused on invitationals at this

46:57

point? I'm mainly focused

46:59

on playing invitationals. The reason

47:01

for this is if I

47:03

played the... It

47:06

started from when I was becoming the

47:08

youngest international master in the world. I've

47:11

always wanted to play higher. The reason for this

47:13

was it's a choice. From

47:16

that period, there are basically two ways you could

47:18

have become international masters. Either you could play grandmaster

47:21

norm events and get your norms from there, or

47:24

you could play international master norm events and

47:26

get your norms from there. I

47:28

chose to play grandmaster norm events. The reason

47:30

for this was that in

47:33

later years, the competition

47:35

wouldn't change so much. The competition would kind

47:37

of remain the same. For

47:40

example, I think in grandmaster norm

47:42

invitations would be like, say, 4.5,

47:44

and then grandmaster norm would be

47:46

like 6.57. So

47:49

I would kind of be accustomed to the field already. This

47:52

is kind of what I'm planning to do as a

47:54

doubt, to play higher invitational events

47:57

so that I get accustomed to the

47:59

top level. Okay. Even if

48:01

it means you have to play less frequently.

48:03

Yes. Yeah. I mean,

48:06

ideally, you know, you wouldn't have

48:08

to choose. I'm just curious and

48:11

feel free to, you know, skip

48:13

this, but Tata

48:15

Steel, that's an obvious one where like you

48:17

circle it on your calendar and, you

48:20

know, we wish you were invited. Are there

48:22

other like specific tournaments that you're thinking about

48:24

that would be nice to get into? Of

48:27

course. Any, okay. Any, this

48:30

is not okay. Any specific tournament, but

48:32

any, any event which has

48:34

like 2,600 pluses, that would be a

48:36

pretty good event. Just any

48:38

like strong event that invites

48:41

good players. Yeah, that makes

48:43

sense. We'll be right back with

48:45

more from Grandmaster Abhimanyu Mishra. This

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49:22

And we are back. And Abhi,

49:24

so you wrote in your book, you told

49:26

the story of getting to go to Kasparov's

49:28

foundation. You talk about your, you're being a big

49:30

fan of GM Maurice Ashley and obviously you've gotten

49:32

to meet him in St. Louis subsequently.

49:35

Have you had any sort

49:37

of pinch me moments in

49:39

your career so far? Yeah,

49:42

I should mention the first time I met Kasparov,

49:44

it was at the age of nine. There was

49:46

this training camp in New York. It

49:49

was amazing to see how full of energy he

49:51

was and how, how much passion he

49:53

had through the game of chess. He

49:56

was still so passionate after all these years after

49:58

becoming world champion and so on. It

50:00

was just amazing to see honestly for me like

50:03

even nowadays every six months. We have a training session

50:05

either in New York or

50:08

st. Louis and I remember

50:10

like one of the one of our past sessions

50:12

There was I think it was in st. Louis

50:14

There was a TV in the left left

50:16

hand corner and there was some some

50:18

study On

50:20

it some like Queen Queen Knight versus Queen

50:22

and and Kasper of Look

50:25

at the study Now you could tell

50:27

for the next 45 minutes even though we were going

50:29

through games and so on that she wasn't fully He

50:33

was he was still calculating the study. He You

50:36

could cut you could see the sense of relief

50:38

after he finally solved it Like

50:41

these stories of how dedicated he

50:43

is. It's truly amazing. It's unmatchable

50:46

Yeah, I guess that's how you get to be the goat. Do

50:49

you have an opinion by the way about who the who the

50:51

goat is? Yeah, it's a

50:53

very difficult question But I think

50:55

Magnus as of now is like one of the best

50:57

players the whole time Have

50:59

you gotten to chat with Magnus at all? I? Took

51:03

a photo with him in Wike and see of 2023

51:06

but like talking to him too much

51:08

and not not yet Okay,

51:10

and bringing it back to Gary

51:12

like what were so you describe

51:14

reviewing games to the extent that you

51:16

can reveal it like What what

51:19

was the structure of those sessions

51:22

the structure of those sessions was that it's like

51:24

an interview type interview

51:26

type thing that we have to present six

51:28

of our games from the past six months

51:31

to wins to draw two losses and We

51:33

explain our thoughts and what we thought like We

51:36

explained our thoughts during the game and

51:38

he would he would give us

51:40

information and how to how to become better player

51:42

and so on Okay, yeah,

51:45

I think he's been using that formula for a while

51:48

How does it feel to sort of like

51:50

sit with your games and decide which ones

51:52

you're gonna show to Kasparov? That's

51:54

actually what I said That's that's

51:57

always a very very

51:59

interesting experience It's like, okay, I remember even

52:01

after winning like my game against the Ronin. I'm

52:03

like, okay, I'm definitely going to show this game

52:05

to Casper. Right, exactly. But then

52:07

you've got to show him some losses too. So what

52:10

direction do you go for those? Do you just

52:12

show him like your biggest bonehead blunders? Or do

52:14

you try to find the ones where like you

52:16

played well while you lost? I try to show

52:19

games where I feel that I can learn. So

52:21

like my biggest problem areas or

52:24

the games that were the closest. Okay.

52:28

And do you feel like you might not

52:30

want to reveal this for competitive reasons, but do

52:32

you feel like you have a relative weakness in

52:35

your game right now that you're emphasizing? Well,

52:37

as if now, not too much. Just,

52:41

okay, like, okay, I'm just trying to improve generally,

52:43

but okay, I don't think there's too

52:45

much of a specific weakness. Okay,

52:48

that's good to hear. And

52:51

when you do postmortems with like the,

52:53

you know, top 10 players,

52:55

is there anything that stands out to you? Or

52:58

is it just like, they're a little better at

53:00

everything? I

53:02

think it's also, for example, when

53:04

I was on

53:06

C Square podcast with Fabiano, it was amazing

53:09

how even after like reaching

53:12

2800, how he wants to understand the

53:14

other person's point of view. Yeah. Like

53:16

this open mindedness, I think is one

53:18

very, very good aspect of these

53:20

top players that everyone, no matter how

53:22

strong they are, they still

53:25

look to improve. Yeah,

53:27

it's a great, great attitude. And

53:29

hearing you mentioned Fabiano, I meant

53:32

to ask you, so obviously, I

53:34

really enjoyed your interview on C

53:36

Square, but in discussing the sponsorship,

53:39

Fabiano, of course, somewhat famously, his

53:41

family relocated to Europe from New

53:44

York in order to pursue chess

53:46

more easily. Given

53:48

the frustrating experience, and again, I

53:51

echo the frustrations that your

53:53

family is feeling as a

53:55

chess fan. Did

53:57

you have any conversations with Fabiano about

54:00

And you feel free again not to answer

54:02

this. Did you or your family have any

54:04

conversations about like, you know,

54:06

how best to sort of continue to

54:08

make this path sustainable?

54:13

Yeah, this is another interesting question. Not

54:19

particularly too much. Okay.

54:23

Yeah. Well, again, hopefully

54:25

these issues will resolve themselves

54:28

with your continued. Absolutely

54:31

amazing success.

54:35

So I think, Abi, we've

54:37

covered most of the major

54:39

topics I wanted to

54:41

discuss. We've

54:44

gotten some recommendations for like us,

54:46

you know, lowly club players. It

54:48

sounds like your calendar is fairly

54:51

TBD for the year. Your

54:53

study regimen is somewhat

54:56

free-flowing, but hardcore. Is that

54:58

a fair assessment? Sure. And

55:01

what about, dare I ask about like plans when

55:03

you're 18? Do you, I mean,

55:05

you're obviously on a professional track in terms

55:07

of chess. It goes without saying when you're,

55:09

you know, the only 17-year-old in the

55:12

junior top 10 by

55:15

three years younger than everyone else. But

55:17

do you envision a scenario where you

55:19

might go to university or do you

55:21

think it's chess all the way? I

55:24

think that's another important aspect that

55:27

in my opinion, I believe that I'm going to hit my

55:29

peak in let's say two to three years. And

55:33

by then, okay, then I would have

55:35

decided whether I want to go full-time

55:38

in the chess or I'm going to go

55:40

into studies. The one thing I don't want is

55:42

about the age of say 18, 20 years

55:44

old that I look back and say, if only I'd done

55:46

something a little bit different, life would be much better than

55:48

it is right now. Yeah. But

55:51

that's only like in

55:54

life we're all working within complete information,

55:56

right? Yeah, yeah. I mean,

55:58

it sounds like you use that as a framework

56:00

to make sure you work as hard as you can

56:02

at chess. Is that a fair assessment? Yeah,

56:05

but I want to be able to do everything I

56:07

can so that, okay, I don't regret it later. Okay.

56:11

Um, and when you go like

56:13

Prague as a beautiful historic city, have you

56:15

been there yet? No, not yet. This is

56:17

my first time going to Czech Republic. Okay.

56:20

And so you mentioned in your book, you

56:22

don't tend to do much sightseeing now that

56:24

your schedule has sort of spread

56:26

out a little bit, like, are

56:28

you going to build in any extra time in a

56:30

trip like that? Well, it's

56:32

a quite exhausting trip. I'm not too,

56:36

not too certain, but yeah, maybe, maybe a little

56:38

bit, maybe last day, I'll check out some, some

56:41

sites and so on, but not, not too much

56:43

usually. Yeah. And of course, as, as

56:45

you guys mentioned in the book, like your dad is,

56:47

is working for the most

56:49

part, like you often basically

56:52

working two jobs as like your

56:54

manager and caretaker and,

56:56

you know, needing to actually

56:58

do, um, his, is

57:00

he a computer programmer or software

57:02

manager? What's his exact, um, yeah.

57:05

He's a software engineer. Okay.

57:07

Yeah. I mean, like doing that

57:09

during your games and then being there for

57:11

you when, when, or doing it overnight, I

57:13

mean, it's, um, Supreme sacrifice from your family

57:15

as well. Um,

57:17

so Abi, you mentioned

57:19

in, um, in your book,

57:21

like you mentioned seeing this movie when you were

57:24

five, uh, run Milka run.

57:27

Um, could you, could you

57:29

tell the story of how that sort of framed your,

57:31

your approach in your younger years? That

57:34

mill, that movie was about a very

57:36

inspirational, it was a very inspirational tale

57:38

about a real life

57:40

story about how a milk, I

57:42

think he was an Indian runner and it was how

57:45

he trained and so on. Like

57:47

they made a whole movie about his life story.

57:49

That, that really inspired me to, to push

57:53

and achieve my dream. And

57:56

are you able to, do you watch any

57:58

shows or movies these days? I

58:01

watch a little bit, but okay not like

58:03

not too seriously just but once in

58:05

a while. What would you watch? Not

58:08

okay. Not anything chest-related for sure.

58:10

Just just like I don't watch

58:12

I mean other than I the one

58:14

thing I like watching in terms of chests

58:16

like the C-Swear podcast, of course Yeah, like

58:19

by it's run by Fabiano and Christian and

58:21

they've done amazing. They've done an amazing job

58:24

Inviting guests and so on like I've what I most

58:26

like about the show is it's not Rather

58:29

than like specific positions. They talk about a variety

58:31

of things surrounding chess and I it's it's

58:35

It's amazing for me to get these top players

58:37

opinions on on things like

58:39

their thought process in general. Yeah,

58:42

I agree It's amazing. And yeah, they're and

58:44

there's they're quite frank in it, which I

58:46

really appreciate I mean, they don't they don't

58:48

hold back and it's you know Christian

58:50

does an amazing job hosting and obviously

58:53

you don't get to hear someone like Fabiano like Often

58:56

someone like that would would Not

58:59

share their full perspective, but he's

59:01

a he's pretty forthcoming But

59:04

outside of the chest row mobby like can you reveal

59:06

any of the shows that you're that you're watching when

59:08

you do get a chance? Sure. I'm

59:11

watching like some some random stuff on Netflix.

59:13

Okay, maybe a movie or two Some

59:15

Hindi some Indian movies and so on.

59:17

Okay, it's not Not

59:20

to nothing knows no like particular favorite

59:22

no, not really Okay, and

59:24

what about reading? Do you do any non

59:27

chess like leisure reading? Well, if it's

59:29

required to school, that's a different thing but Usually

59:32

not not too much. Okay Excellent.

59:35

All right. Well, I'll be

59:37

again Just so

59:39

impressed obviously impressed with your chest but also

59:41

just like your comportment as a young man

59:44

It's you know proud to be a fellow,

59:46

New Jersey and so

59:49

Congratulations on your success so far and

59:52

wish you continued success in the future While

59:55

I have you here. Is there anything else any

59:57

other points you'd like to highlight? Sure,

1:00:00

I'd like to thank everyone for their love and

1:00:02

support throughout this journey. Okay,

1:00:05

excellent. Yeah, and I'll link to all

1:00:07

your your social medias so people can

1:00:09

follow your continued progress So good luck

1:00:11

in Prague and the Pro Chess League

1:00:14

and hopefully you will have many other

1:00:16

invites Subsequent

1:00:18

to that certainly deserved and yeah,

1:00:20

I can't wait to see your

1:00:22

continued progress, Avi. Thank you You

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