64: A Chess Podcast

GM Peter Heine Nielsen is the coach of World Champion Magnus Carlsen, five-time Danish Champion, fellow podcaster, and self-described "adult in the room". Listen to the Chicken Chess Club, featuring GMs Peter Heine Nielsen, Jan Gustafsson, and Laurent Fressinet! 64: A Chess Podcast is sponsored by Chessable -- if you want to learn more about Chessable & my favorite courses, check out go.chessa...

WFM Devina Devagharan is a Twitch streamer, chess coach, and fellow podcaster. Devina streams chess at twitch.tv/twitchlezgo . Check out her website at www.devinadev.com to learn more about Devina & sign up for private lessons! 64: A Chess Podcast is sponsored by Chessable -- if you want to learn more about Chessable & my favorite courses, check out go.chessable.com/64podcast If you want t...

GM Anish Giri is the No. 1 ranked chess player in the Netherlands, and one of the strongest chess players in the world, currently ranked No. 10 on the FIDE Top 100 Ratings List for May 2022. A four-time Dutch champion, Anish has been a mainstay of professional chess in the past decade. He is one of the greatest players in the history of the game, achieving a live rating of 2802.8 in February 2015,...

MrDodgy is a Chess Twitter celebrity, Twitch streamer, and iconic organizer of the world-renowned MrDodgy Invitational Tournament. 64: A Chess Podcast is sponsored by Chessable -- if you want to learn more about Chessable & my favorite courses, check out go.chessable.com/64podcast If you want to support the podcast, subscribe to my Patreon (for as little as $1 a month!). Follow 64: A Chess Pod...

Trym Sørsdal is the Director of Community Operations at Chess.com. He is also one of my best friends in Copenhagen, with whom I've played a ton of OTB chess in the last few months. We decided to try something different on the podcast today, going for an unfiltered, 2 hour conversation over some beers with the Real Madrid-Manchester City game in the background. I hope you guys enjoy this episode! 6...

WGM Jennifer Shahade is a 2-time U.S. Women's Chess Champion, former Candidate in the Women's World Cup, a professional poker player, fellow podcaster, and critically acclaimed author of the books "Chess Bitch" and -- most recently -- "Chess Queens". She is also a dear friend of the podcast, and joined me last month to promote "Chess Queens". Purchase "Chess Queens" now on Amazon or at your local...

Tatiana Flores is a chess journalist for Chessbase and Chess.com, and is the current FIDE World Champion for People with Disabilities. On this week's episode of 64: A Chess Podcast, Tatiana shares her story with me -- how chess helped her recover from health problems a few years ago, and how she won the World Championship a few months ago. We also talked about her favorite moments as a chess journ...

(Newly-minted) FM James Canty III was the very first guest on 64: A Chess Podcast, and on the 1-year anniversary of the podcast, he re-joins the show to update me about his journey towards the GM title, his growth as a Twitch streamer, and the habits which allow him to achieve his goals. FM Canty has an infectious passion for chess, and it really shines through in this episode. James is a true fri...

GM Noël Studer is a (2-time) Swiss Chess Champion. He was awarded the grandmaster title when he was 20 years old, making him the youngest person in Switzerland's history to reach GM. During his chess career, he played many top events including the Biel Chess Festival, GRENKE Open, and Gibraltar Masters; he also represented Switzerland in several Chess Olympiads. He started "Next Level Chess", a ch...

Tarjei Svensen is the most prolific journalist working in the chess world today. Currently writing featured articles on chess24, Tarjei has also written for Chess.com, and many other platforms. With over 21,000 followers on Twitter, Tarjei is also one of my main sources for chess updates + tournament coverage for my own podcast. Tarjei joined me earlier this week to talk about the impact of the Ru...

It's been almost a month since I recorded an episode of 64: A Chess Podcast, and in that time some cataclysmic events have occurred on our planet. Russia has invaded Ukraine, starting a war that has been internationally condemned by both opponents and allies of Putin. This war has obviously led to a massive loss of live and outflow of refugees from Ukraine, but it has also had consequences on the...

Last weekend, World Champion Magnus Carlsen played for his club Offerspill on 1st board in the top flight of the Norwegian League, and was miraculously held to a draw by Norwegian IM Geir Sune Østmoe. The game made International headlines as Magnus, who is currently pursuing the goal of 2900 Elo, lost all the Elo he gained after winning Tata Steel just a few days prior. IM Østmoe and GM Carlsen we...

This week I'm joined by FM Anna-Maja Kazarian. FM Kazarian, as of recording this episode, has over 23,000 Twitch followers, and is signed to the e-sports organization Alliance as a content creator and competitive chess player. She won the Dutch Online Women's Chess Championship in 2021, and has played in several OTB tournaments, trying to bring her rating back to 2300+. She started streaming a lit...

This week I am joined by FM Nate Solon. Away from the board, FM Solon is a data scientist, which informs his work when blogging and writing about chess. Years ago he was a professional poker player, and to this day is a somewhat active chess player. He also works as a consultant for Chessable, a member of the Play Magnus Group. This discussion with Nate, about studying and improving at chess in th...

This week I am joined by the lads from the Chess Pit Podcast-- Jon, Phil, and Robin. I came on their podcast during the Magnus-Nepo match and discussed the state of the chess media-sphere ( you can check out that episode here ). We continued that discussion on this episode of 64: A Chess Podcast, and also gave our thoughts on the perils of being hyperfixated on immediate and stark chess improvemen...

This week on 64: A Chess Podcast, I was joined by GM Ruslan Ponomariov. GM Ponomariov was the youngest GM in history when he obtained the title, won the 2002 FIDE World Championship at 18 years old, and has played & won many elite tournaments, including the Tal Memorial 2006, San Sebastian 2009, and the Ukrainian Championship in 2011 and 2013. He recently played in the FIDE Grand Swiss and is...

Happy 2022, everyone! I'm joined this week by Benjamin Portheault ( @BenjiPortheault ), a performance coach for mental athletes who has worked with chess players across a wide range of ratings -- from tournament players to someone (anonymous) who was trying to qualify for the Candidates. This was a lovely discussion that covered a bunch of topics, from the 2021 World Championship to sleep deprivat...

On 64: A Chess Podcast's final episode of 2021, I spoke to NM Sophie Morris Suzuki, who took 5th place at the U.S. Junior Women's Championship earlier in 2021 while on a gap break from college. We had actually recorded an episode together back in July, but for some reason Zoom did not record my audio while we taped the episode and as a result I could not actually release the episode. I'd been wait...

IM Greg Shahade is the commissioner of the PRO Chess League. Along with his sister Jennifer (who was on my podcast a few months ago!), Greg was a talented junior player in his youth who has worked on growing chess in the United States for his entire career, both as an educator and as an organizer of chess events. Among many other achievements, he has one GM norm, and was awarded the Samford Fellow...

Tai Pruce-Zimmerman ( @chessnumbers ), also known as "Chess by the Numbers", has been running a chess blog for many years. Fueled by statistical analysis and intense attention to trends in the chess world, he has reported about everything from the rise of chess prodigies to probabilities of tournament results. His work has also fueled a lot of the discussion that I've had about certain storylines...

NM Jeremy Kane is the Curriculum Director for Chess.com. He won the Wisconsin State Championship in 2007 and has worked as a chess teacher/coach/mentor for many years. He last made an appearance on the podcast in July, where he teased a book called "The Next to Last Mistake" which he had been writing for several years. Next month, the book will be released! I invited Jeremy back on the show for a...

lularobs is a chess streamer from Jersey, UK. She started playing chess almost a year ago, when "The Queen's Gambit" was capturing the attention and imagination of audiences all over the world. She started streaming shortly after -- since then, she's gained 3,500 followers on Twitch, and recently became a partner streamer with Chess.com. A few days ago, she won the second edition of the Dragon Mas...

FM Michiel Abeln is a chess author, best known for his critically acclaimed book "The Anand Files" which details the games and stories surrounding Viswanathan Anand's three World Championship titles. Michiel has recently published a Chessable course on the Leningrad Dutch, a dynamic response to 1.d4 which is aimed towards adult improvers. Long-time listeners know that I adore "The Anand Files". It...

Martin Justesen is a published chess author from Denmark. Martin's books are aimed for adult improvers like him, across all levels. He recently adapted Jose Raul Capablanca's classic "Chess Fundamentals" into algebraic notation so that newer players would be able to tap into his vast knowledge. He's also written books on blindfold endgame calculation, "headachingly hard" mate-in-two puzzles, and e...

NM Ben Johnson is the host of the Perpetual Chess Podcast, which recently joined the Blue Wire Podcasts family. Perpetual Chess has 1,000,000+ streams in over 100 countries and, since its inception five years ago, has been the gold standard for chess podcasts. Ben has interviewed everyone from competitive tournament players to World Champions (Anand and Kramnik) of the game. Ben's podcasting empir...