Name: Joe Rogan Experience #2275 - Magnus Carlsen
Uploaded: 2025-02-20T18:00:51.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Joe Rogan Experience #2275 - Magnus Carlsen' from PowerfulJRE on Comedy Buff. Published 2025-02-20. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Joe Rogan Experience #2275 - Magnus Carlsen' from PowerfulJRE on Comedy Buff. Published 2025-02-20. Transcript available.

Joe Rogan Experience #2275 - Magnus Carlsen

Joe Rogan podcast, check it out.
The Joe Rogan experience.
Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night, all day.
All right, we're up and rolling.
Magnus Carlson, ladies and gentlemen.
You want some coffee?
No, oh, this is water.
Tell Jeff to bring in the coffee.
I forgot to bring in the coffee.
No, no, I'm good with water.
I need coffee.
I'm going to keep up with you, buddy.
And of course, Tony Hagecliffe is here, who's a gigantic chess fan and just
creamed his pants yesterday when I told him you were coming in.
And then immediately I said, you got to come with me.
And so Tony's here as well.
It's an honor to meet you, man.
I'm always fascinated by people that are at the top of something that's
insanely
difficult, like chess.
And I'm always wondering, like, how much time is involved?
How often do you play?
And when did you start?
How old were you when you first started playing?
I think my dad is an avid chess player.
So I think he thought that I might have some talent.
So he thought he taught me pretty early at around five years old.
But at that time, I wasn't that interested.
I was mostly into Legos and I was into maths and like sports stats.
And I had my little flag book with all all the countries in the world, their
flags and their
inhabitants and area and everything.
And I sort of, that's what I did, generally just taking in all the stats that I
could also
with sports, reading the sports section every day.
And I didn't find chess that fun.
A couple of years later, my older sister is a year and a half older than me.
She had, she did a lot of chess with, with my dad.
I started sitting in on them a bit and I started liking it.
I really, really wanted to beat my sister as well at generally everything.
And yeah, from there on, it really just became, became my thing.
And it's, you know, been my main hobby and eventually work as well since.
Yeah, obviously.
It's so funny though, a spark, a competitive spark with your sister is really
what ignited
you to get going with it.
Yeah.
The funny thing is like, she's not competitive at all.
So she hated the fact that I like, I wanted to play, especially when I, I
realized that
I could beat her.
And she, she, she liked chess, but she stopped for, for a while and only
started when I had
become like good enough that there wasn't a competition.
So it turned out like, like my dad was right after all.
I just needed, um, I just needed that, um, that extra push.
Yeah.
What a, what a call.
I think you've got some talent.
What a call.
Grandmaster at 12, was it?
Um, 13.
So actually the, um, the record is, um, the record is 12, but, uh, most kids
these days,
honestly, they, they start so early.
Uh, I was at a tournament in India a few months ago.
And there's this guy who's like a 1600 rated player and he's three years old.
And like, I, I'm seeing, I'm seeing, I'm seeing the, I'm seeing the games.
Like they are actually, they're actually decent.
Um, and yeah, now there, there's this one kid from Argentina.
Like they call him the messy of chess who's going to become a grandmaster soon.
I think he's, he's only 10.
So they're, they're really, really, uh, playing early these days, but it's, it's,
it's good to
see though, because like information is so easily accessible these days.
Like it takes a lot shorter time to, to get, to get good at something.
Well, it seems like now, uh, chess, because of social media, it's like
everything else.
It's kind of exploding because there's so many fascinating videos out.
And then of course there was like the big controversy with that, uh, young man
who you believe is, uh,
a big old cheater that guy, I, I need to know the anal beads thing.
Is that a legitimate theory?
So it actually started in one of, uh, my friend's streamer channel that like
one random guy said,
made, made a comment about anal beads and he was, and he was like, yeah, maybe.
And then, uh, I think it, it became, it started taking the rounds and read it.
And then Elon saw it, tweeted about it.
And then obviously it blew up.
Um, I, I actually spoke to, um, I, I think it was Mark Andreessen who said like,
that would be one way to do it.
Yes.
But I really, really, really don't believe that that has happened.
Like, I think it has no, um, no connection to reality, but it just became, it's
a thing of its own.
So unfortunately this young man, we will explain the anal beads thing.
But this, this young man is a very talented player, but does has, have a
history of some shenanigans.
Correct.
And even admitted that he did a little bit of cheating in order to move his
rating higher.
So he could play better players.
Yeah.
I mean, he, he's not admitted to nearly the extent of, of his, of his cheating.
Uh, but if you sort of, um, if you sort of take what, what chess.com say,
then yeah, um, his, he cheated a bunch online in, uh, in a certain period of
time, um, partly in tournaments,
but mostly in, in casual games as, as he just set himself to, um, to sort of,
uh,
get himself up the standings and play the best players in the world.
But he is a very good player.
I think he has become a good, very good player.
Yeah.
Interesting.
Okay.
So what made you convinced that he was cheating in that particular game?
And by what method do you think he could possibly have been doing this?
Could you hear something?
Was it like burn?
You're hearing vibrations?
You see his, his seat shift.
Yeah.
You're smelling something.
There's a whiff of something in the air.
Um, yeah.
I mean, that would have been, um, would have been the smoking gun, I suppose.
Um, I think there was a combination of, um, of things though, uh, based on, you
know,
the chess level that I, uh, that I thought that he, he had and that I'd seen
from, from his game,
both playing against him, analyzing a little with him and looking at his, at
his other games.
Um, there were a lot of stories, um, back then.
Um, the thing is also there's, um, there's a Netflix documentary coming in a
few months that
sort of, it's where I'm telling my side of the story.
Um, so I like, I kind of go too deep into, uh, into everything.
But what I can say was that there were, there were a lot of factors, um, that
made me very, very suspicious.
Um, and, um, I think ever since then he has become better, uh, but there's some
still something,
uh, there's still something off, um, both then and, and now.
But that's so fascinating that as an elite chess player, you'd be able to
recognize that something
is happening that's outside of his capabilities.
Again, um, I'm not ruling out the factor that chess players are becoming more
and more paranoid
because we do have chess engines that basically have perfect chess, right?
Like anybody with their, their phone can, as I think Elon tweeted to, to Gary
once, like,
my iPhone can beat you at chess, which is, which is, which is, which is the
truth.
And this means that, you know, anybody having access to information, it's, it's
incredibly,
it's incredibly dangerous.
And I think top level chess has been a lot based on, on trust.
And, um, whenever you have outsiders whom there are these stories about,
everybody gets a bit, a bit jittery there.
There's like, as people who either like the burst onto the scene, then they,
then they establish themselves and people, people know that they're legit and
so on.
It's, it's not, um, it's not a problem with, with him specifically.
Um, I don't know, it was, um,
it's just, it doesn't seem to be playing or it didn't at that point seem to be
playing with,
um, with a particular style.
It seemed that he either played kind of eh, or he just more or less played
any position very well in, in certain games.
Like he could just switch from tactical to positional play very easily.
And, uh, it was, um, yeah, it didn't, didn't smell good to me.
It's still, it still doesn't.
But, um, you know, to some extent, like he, he had his, uh, he had his lawsuit.
We've all kind of moved a little bit on.
I think I don't trust him.
A lot of other top players still don't trust him.
Um, he certainly doesn't, uh, doesn't trust me or chess.com or Hikaru or whomever
he felt wronged by.
Um, but the problem is like once someone admits that they cheated a game,
especially a game that has a lot of trust in it, like chess,
you're always going to think like, is he cheating now?
Always.
But the question is like, what method?
Like what, what do people do?
So if you're sitting there, you have no phone, your pockets are empty.
Like, what could you be doing that could possibly be aiding you?
Well, first of all, like an invisible air piece, um, that people use for exams
and so on.
Like, so, but he would have to have a partner.
Uh, yeah, uh, he, he would.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Um, that would not have been detected by the security system that they, um,
they used at that tournament.
Um, they amped up the security.
After the whole thing happened, check your ears.
Yeah.
They, they start checking their, our ears.
And then, um, you know, we had a live tournament in, in Paris last year,
where I played him, where there was proper security,
where all of these things would be picked up.
And he didn't like, he didn't play to nearly the same, uh, to nearly the same
level there.
Um, so I think I, I, well, I'm not an expert in all of that,
but that's what I've heard from people that that's like the most obvious thing
that it could have, uh, that someone could have done.
And it wouldn't be really that hard to pull off,
considering the kind of, um, security we have at, at chess tournaments.
And this tournament had like a little bit of security.
A lot of them like open tournaments.
Uh, people are like wandering in and out of the playing hall.
There are people in the playing hall, like spectators with their, um,
um, with their smartphones, uh, on and taking pictures or, or whatever,
like going in and out, like they could make signals.
It's, it's, um, yeah, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's hard.
It's, it's a big problem in chess for sure.
Yeah, the, so the anal beads thing, for people who don't know what we're
talking about,
the, the theory was that he had vibrating anal beads that would somehow or
another,
through some sort of code, explain to him the moves.
And I've thought about this for a lot longer than I care to admit.
Like what, what kind of code are you getting from inside your butt that you
like, okay, I got it.
Well, it would be like, you know, C4 or whatever.
Like it could tell you, but how would it say it in your butt?
Well, I mean, I'd have to show you.
Luckily I brought one.
Yeah.
So I'm in right now.
No, it would be like, it would, it would buzz, right?
It would buzz the letters and then the numbers that would indicate where you
would move.
And there would only be a piece or two.
So like the first three vibrations would be letter C and then, yeah.
Okay.
Um, yeah, it's just a sort of tech, technological version of ways people have
cheated before.
There was a scandal back in 2010 where, um, the captain of the French team was
helping one of his,
um, uh, one of the French players by cheating.
He was basically just standing in certain spots around the table to tell him
where to, where to move.
Oh, wow.
That's crazy.
Oh, wow.
Dirty people out there.
This is wild.
Well, it's such a competitive thing.
Whenever you have competitive things, you always have people that just want to
win at any cost.
Right.
Yeah.
It's also funny that, um, one of his teammates from that tournament, uh, worked
with me for a long time.
And he told me that like, this guy was like going out every night, not taking
the tournament seriously at all.
But it, yeah, he had a good reason.
Like he knew he was gonna.
He's partying.
He knew he was gonna win.
That's hilarious.
So that, is that the most egregious form of cheating that you've ever seen or
heard of?
Um, no, I, I, I actually played an open tournament in Denmark about 20 years
ago, where there was a guy who was playing Grandmaster in the first round.
Like there was not a very good player.
And he was, he came drunk to 