EP 406- Peter Doggers on The Chess Revolution: A big picture look at Cheating, Engines and the Explosion of Online Chess

Peter Doggers is an award-winning chess journalist who is currently the director of News and Events at Chess.com. His role has given him a ringside seat to modern chess history, as he has attended many of the world’s top events, and interviewed the likes of GM Garry Kasparov, Hikaru Nakamura, and countless others. Peter’s new book, The Chess Revolution: From the Ancient World to the Digital Age covers everything from the beginnings of chess, to its many representations in pop culture, to the explosion in popularity the game has experienced in the internet age. Peter’s excellent book covers chess from all angles, so we zeroed in on a few of my favorite topics from the book including: the history of chess and computers, recent stories around chess cheating, and their implications for the future of chess, the rise of Chess.com, and the story behind the making of Peter’s book. Every chess fan will learn something from Peter’s book, and I greatly enjoyed discussing it with him. Timestamps of topics discussed are below.

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0:03- We begin by discussing allegations of GM Kirill Shevchenko cheating at an OTB tournament 11:00- We discuss OTB and online cheating more generally

16:00- Peter tells a story from his book, of the famous Mechanical Turk, which was an 18th-century chess-playing machine with a human hidden behind it. https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=the+turk+chess

21:00- We discuss the famous Kasparov-Deep Blue match as well as another watershed “man vs. machine” match featuring GM Michael Adams. Mentioned: The TV series Rematch- more info here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rematch_(miniseries)

25:00- Patreon mailbag question: Where does Peter see chess heading in the next 10 years? Mentioned: IM Daniel Rensch’s interview with Ilya Levitov https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6JeMsV9aNec

32:00- Peter tells the story of what he believes to be the first online encounter between Magnus and Hikaru in 2004 on the Internet Chess Club. We also discuss a “Secret” Magnus-Hikaru blitz match. Mentioned: YouTube excerpt from Macauley Peterson https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tGXvcQP6VPo

37:00- The history of Chess.com and LiChess Mentioned: Lichess founder Thibault Duplessis

39:00- We discuss the chess GOATS- Magnus, Fischer and Kasparov. As discussed in last week’s episode with FM Charles Hertan, did he consider Morphy for the GOAT list?

44:00- What was the biggest challenge in writing the book and compiling the material?

52:00- How did Peter find a publisher, that ultimately wound up in a bidding war?

58:00- Did Peter write in English or Dutch?

1:00:00- Peter’s favorite chapters?

1:02:00- Peter’s plans for an OTB comeback.

1:04:00- Thanks to Peter for joining! Here is how to reach him:

You email Peter at Peter at chess dot com peterdoggers.com Chess.com profile- https://www.chess.com/players/peter-doggers Get the book here- https://www.amazon.com/s?k=the+chess+revolution+peter+doggers&crid=2PYSZWX9BPES&sprefix=the+chess+rev%2Caps%2C164&ref=nb_sb_ss_ts-doa-p_1_13

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