That’s amazing. I wonder what’s the story for the player in the hat.
I was impressed by that one move - PxN and another N.
I think it’s called “en passe-passe”.
Beautiful
Always surprises me to see a young grandmaster. In my head they are always pretty old.
According to wikipedia we as born in 1966. Given that life expectancy in the US is around 79, I don’t think I would call 50 young.
New York City is full of weird wonderful encounters like this!
Also, How does Tim Ferris manage to be everywhere?
He certainly aged well. I took him for mid-thirties.
I’d have happily bet money on him being around that age.
I’m too much of a chess moron to know if the hustler good enough to hold on that long, or the grandmaster was just toying with him the whole time and could have finished him off much faster. (I know speed chess plays differently).
I fell down a Maurice Ashley youtube rabit hole, discovering he’s a great lecturer and does outreach to kids that could use an extra edge through chess, check it out:
It’s been a long time, but in my experience the chess hustlers vary considerably, but many are pretty damned good players.
Unfortunately far too many of them will do just about anything to avoid paying - including cheating, like the bullshit “pawn takes knight, then another knight” move seen in this vid, which was neither a mistake nor uncommon - as well as threats and intimidation if they lose
I’m 41, and I figured him for mid-thirties, too.
Yeah, Grandmaster Ashley was extremely gracious to this cheater (“trickery” in polite parlance) and still roundly whoppped him. Even so, it was clearly a good time had by both players and the peanut gallery. And more entertaining for me than the Superbowl. But for someone who’s not a chess expert, playing with a feckless cheat like this hustler is just irritating, as it would be with any game, when you’re trying to develop your skills and some unsportsmanlike jerk ruins what should be an honorable game.
Maybe they’re teaching you a different type of lesson than you were expecting. I’m no expert either, but I know enough not to play strangers in a park for money.
It’s kind of like a street shell game; you don’t play to win money, you pay to watch how skilfully the hustler cheats.
Takes me five minutes to figure out which beer I’m going to have with dinner–there’s no way in hell I could keep up with either of those two. Many years ago an officer running my particular unit was ranked something like #1600-ish in the chess world-rankings. And because we had a great deal of time on our hands, we got to watch him beat all of us in the unit, repeatedly, and (happily for us) without an ounce of superiority on his part.
The lesson that they’re time-wasting jerks? I already learned to distrust strangers in parks long ago. Granted I can just play people I know, but the whole point, for me anyhow, of playing new opponents is to develop my abilities. When they want to cheat instead of play the game, they become a nuisance. I’m no expert, but it’s not like I don’t know the rules, so when they try to do that, I call them on it, and then they get hissy and defensive. It’s like playing with a small child. Very annoying.
