CM Can Kabadayi: How to Prevent Blunders and Why He’s a Top Coach for Club Players

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Daniel (00:05):
Hey, welcome to the chess experience On this show.
It's all about helping adultimprovers.
I want to make learning chesseasier for you to navigate and I
also want you to have a morefun experience along the way.
I'm your host, daniel Lona, afellow chess amateur.
Let's get to it.

(00:25):
This show is sponsored bychesscom, the world's largest
chess community.
One of chesscom's most popularfeatures is called Game Review.
This feature weaves together alot of benefits.
In one post-game analysis, forexample, you can see how
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deemed brilliant or great, whichmakes me feel a lot better

(00:46):
about my chess when I get one ofthose.
And Game Review also offers avirtual coach that gives
insights on every move.
It'll also show you alternatelines that would have been
better for you to help youunderstand how you can improve
your game.
So go on chesscom, play a gameand try out the Game Review.
Welcome to this week's episode.
Our guest is one of thebrightest stars of the latest

(01:07):
generation of chess coaches.
Dr John Kabadaya is a candidatemaster from Turkey and who now
lives in Sweden, although Johndidn't get serious about chess
until age 17, after a few yearsof hard study, he earned a FIDE
rating of 2150.
Later he would climb to 2219FIDE.
But before he ever made chess acareer endeavor, john earned

(01:30):
his PhD in cognitive science, asubject that influences his
approach right now to chesscoaching and teaching.
Of all that John hasaccomplished in chess so far in
recent years, he's probably madehis biggest splash as a
renowned chessable author.
He's won several awards withchessable, most recently their
biggest award, which is authorof the year for 2024, even

(01:55):
beating out the Garry Kasparov.
John is also one of chessable'smost popular authors,
publishing over 10 amazingcourses that are ideal for club
players.
His most recent one, preventingBlunders, is a topic we'll
cover in depth in this episode.
Plus, our discussion willinclude some great insights and
tips for you on how you canreduce the frequency of blunders

(02:15):
in your own game.
There are links in the shownotes to John's courses, his
social media channels and hissuperb YouTube channel, which
has tons of videos to help youimprove your chess.
Here's my interview with John.
I hope you enjoy it.
Welcome to the podcast, john.
I'm so excited to have you onthe show.
We've both been aware of eachother and kind of like loosely
following each other on Twitterfor a while it's always exciting

(02:38):
to connect live when we get achance Very impressed with all
that you've accomplished inchess and continue to do in
chess so, and we'll get into allof that, but I just want to say
thank you for being on the showand welcome.

Can (02:50):
It's my pleasure, daniel.
Thank you so much for invitingme.
You're also a podcast that Iwas closely following,
especially episodes involvingchess improvements, I'm sure I
mean.
Andras Tolt was there manytimes.
Dan Heisman was there manytimes.
Dan Heisman was there many,many times.
I got great lessons from yourpodcast.
Thank you for bringing value tothis chess community.

Daniel (03:07):
Thank you so much.
Oh, my pleasure, yeah, mypleasure to do so.
Yeah, those are fantasticguests that you're listening to.
Yeah, they are some of the bestin teaching chess improvement,
so for sure.
But on that point, I consideryou one of the excellent,
excellent people out thereteaching chess improvement and
I'm excited to get into that.
We'll spend some extra time ona particular topic, on

(03:30):
blundering, today, so lookingforward to that.
But before we get intoinstruction, I'd like to learn
more about you, john, and yourjourney, just to get an overview
of how you came to be where youare today.
So you began learning chessrelatively late, at age 17,
which I find interesting.
What got you into the game atthat age?

Can (03:51):
Yeah, I actually learned the rules from my cousin when I
was eight, back in Istanbul.
She was getting chess lessonsfrom her school, but that was a
private school, so she wasgetting chess lessons.
I was not, so then she told methe rules.
Right Already, of course, Isort of liked the game directly,
but it took me a while to getserious about the game itself.
I see, you know, we were stillplaying with our friends in high

(04:12):
school.
You know, between the lessons,you know like lesson breaks and
so on, but it took me a while toget really serious about it.
There was also this crazyuniversity exam in Turkey.
When you're 18, you take thatexam that will determine your
life.
So almost all high school yearswere spent for preparation of
that single exam, which takestime away from chess, of course.
But once I got into uni for thefirst year of prep school, I

(04:33):
was all into chess, you know.
I see, so, age of 17 until 21,which I got my first ever Euler
rating, I was very much obsessedabout the game and, yeah, just
learned mostly from the books aswell, you know, playing online,
studying myself obsessively,and yeah, that was my journey
and of course I became analready 2100 player.

(04:54):
It was my first rating,actually, which is unusual
actually.

Daniel (04:58):
What your first rating was 2000?
2150 already.
Yes, okay, that's incredible asa first rate and we're going to
talk about that for sure.
So you said that you know youkind of got serious about chess
at 17.
You learned the basics earlierthan that, but you got serious
at 17.
What sparked that interest toget serious about the game at
that age?

Can (05:17):
Yeah, as I said, I was always.
It was always in the back of myhead.
You know chess, like I alreadystarted liking it the moment I
was introduced to the game.
I found it fascinating.
I was even playing this battlechess game which is all PC.
My cousin had this game calledBattle Chess.
You know, pieces are turninginto monsters, like it's quite
animated, like back in the olddays.
You know I'm talking aboutmaybe 1994 or something, so.

(05:38):
But as I said, like playingwith my friends in the high
school in lesson breaks, sort ofcompetitive mindset.
The game itself, I think, is sodeep and fascinating because you
know it's just searching forthe truth.
It's so complex, it's like aproblem-solving game and I'm
kind of a personality also thatcan obsess, get obsessed about
those games, you know.
So maybe that was why.

(05:59):
But it was also an individualgame.
You know your own boss, likethere's nobody to blame.
That's also adds to its value,to my mind.
But I was definitely interestedin the game itself.
You know this whole dynamics ofthe game and I obsessively
studied it like ever since I wasin the in the uni, as I said.
So, yeah, it's hard to sayright when it comes to like your

(06:19):
big hobbies in life.
It's very hard to point outexactly why you're so much into
it.
You A little of those passionslike a bug, you know.
Once it's in the system it'sjust very hard to get rid of.

Daniel (06:30):
Yeah, you're talking to the right person about that.
I totally understand and I loveyour comment that the
complexity of the game is one ofthe big things that attracted
you to it, because I definitelyfeel the same way.
The fact that it's insanelydifficult is somehow appealing.
I don't know what that saysabout us, but yeah, yeah, I
agree, it still is.

Can (06:49):
I talked to jacob argard last week for my podcast and he
says yeah, I mean, nobody getsobsessed about tic-tac-toe,
right, because chess is muchmore difficult than tic-tac-toe
exactly the journey is beautifulbecause of the complexity.
Yes, right.

Daniel (07:02):
So I have written here that in the age range from about
17 is it fair to say you wereroughly a beginner level at that
point yes, I mean yes, more orless yes, yes, okay yes, but
then just by four years later,you were at 2153 feed a.
That's an incredible increase inability in just a four-year
span.
And now I have a couple ofquestions about that.

(07:24):
The first one is that you saidyour first rating was 2000.
So please tell me that you weredoing a ton of chess before you
got that.
Yes, I was.

Can (07:32):
It's not, like, you know, one-time single-shot crazy
accident.
That cannot be explained.
It was mostly about study.
As I said, you know I was verymuch obsessed about books, like
my first book was Capablanca'sFundamentals.
My grandmother bought it to mefor a birthday gift.
I remember Maybe that was evenlike when I was 16, 17, just
when I was starting, you know,like when I was starting, she
saw the interest and then shebought me that book.

(07:52):
So then I bought many, manybooks myself.
You know Gary Kasparov's, myGreat Predecessors Bronstein
announce my life, and you knowgames and crime weeks.
I mean, if I go back to my oldlibrary back in Turkey, there
are still all the books there.
You know I couldn't manage toget everything to Sweden.
I'm from a different libraryhere, but most of my books are
still there.
I had this one table, you knowwooden beautiful table.

(08:14):
I was just sitting downanalyzing games.
You know, just historical games,world championships.
I was also fascinated aboutthose old masters Just playing
out the games by myself, askingquestions, annotations.
Also, there was ICC back inthat time.
You know, I was also playing onICC Some Blitz games, rapid
games and even somecorrespondence games.
I played actually in somewebsites back then, you know,

(08:35):
just slow medium games, and Itried all kinds of formats,
again obsessively passionateabout the game, and just, yeah,
that led to the increase ofrating Again.
It was a little surprise, by theway, because that was my first
ever all-TV tournament when Iwas 21.
I had no clue whatsoever howgood I was, you know, and I was
still mesmerized by the game.
It was so beautiful, I was somuch looking forward to it.

(08:55):
It was an Istanbul chessfestival, beautiful place.
So I remember vividly thattournament and I played against
very strong players as well,from Georgia, you know, some
international masters.
I did well.
Again, it's good, you know,when you have zero expectations
about yourself, you know, noanxiety whatsoever, nothing to
protect, you just go and play.
And then I got my first ratingand, yeah, it's sort of

(09:18):
stabilized from the range.
That's interesting.
I sort of kept that levelalmost for my entire chess life.

Daniel (09:26):
You know, there was a great predictor-ish result that
came out in the first one, sothat's interesting.
It was multiple years thenbefore you did your first OTB
tournament.
Yes, I mean for someone who isas passionate about the game as
you were, especially starting atage 17,.
I'm a little surprised to knowthat it was years before you
went to your first tournament.

Can (09:45):
I was still playing in local tournaments in Ankara in
my old university likeuniversity tournaments, all
these tournaments, but they werenot ELO registered, you know
you have to play against certainELO rated players.

Daniel (09:54):
That is nine games to get your first ever ELO rating,
and that took a long time, yeahokay, that, yeah, that
definitely, and you definitelytalked about a great list of
resources that you were using atthe time, both from books to
ICC.
Was this journey of chess inthis period that we're talking
about all self-guided, or didyou work with a coach at all?

Can (10:14):
Totally self-guided.
Of course, I have one or twogood friends from the university
, from the university chess team.
We were just hanging around, wewere analyzing together, we
were discussing ideas and so on,but, you know, like a very,
very casual style I never had acoach.
But, as I said, you know I wastaking those book writers as my
coaches.
I even translated, togetherwith a friend of mine, a chess

(10:36):
book called Secrets of ModernChess Strategy.
Maybe you know that it's fromJohn Watson International master
.
John Watson wrote thisbeautiful book, like monumental
book, called, yeah, secrets ofModern Chess Strategy.
I translated that book fromEnglish to Turkish also at the
same time.
You know, when I was like 19,18.
And I also learned a lot fromthat experience.
You know, just playing out thegames and discussing ideas.

(10:58):
So, yeah, lots of immersionabout the game, no-transcript,
but not with a coach, not with acoach totally about obsessing
myself.
I even created my own firstYouTube channel when I was 21
back in.
Turkey terrible microphonequality, bad English, you know,
but the passion was there.
People were just saying amazing, the passionate YouTuber.
You know terrible microphoneand the bad accent, but I love

(11:21):
your.
I was getting so many suchcomments.
You know the bad accent, but Ilove your video.
I was getting so many suchcomments.
The passion was there that ledto the increase of ratings.

Daniel (11:29):
Were the videos that you were initially creating on
YouTube at that time.
Were they instructional videosor were they just documenting
your journey?

Can (11:36):
Instructional Again, taking a master game, for example,
Fisher, Kasparov, by Heroesanalyzing their matches or their
games.
Totally about the instructedclassics, classical games, Just
analyzing, describing moves,ideas, why, questions and so on.
That was the basic points.

Daniel (11:50):
Yes, yeah, so I find that when people are as excited
and committed to chessimprovement as you were during
that time, that they almostalways have some big goals for
themselves.
You know they start to getideas of like how far they can
take it, and they get excitedabout that.
Would you say that was true ofyou and, if so, what were some
of those goals you created foryourself?

Can (12:10):
Yeah, I was never driven by specific rating goals or rating
points per se.
Right Partly because of theentire journey was obsessive
about chess without even playingOTB tournaments for four years,
you know that was not even inmy system.
I actually loved the game.
The passion was within, totallylike intrinsic motivation to
play, explore, understand, learnthis beautiful game.

(12:32):
And after I got my first ELO,of course there was this point
of maybe I can become acandidate master.
I'm very close to it, maybe Ican pursue a FIDE mastership or
something.
But also I sort of knew that itrequired real effort to make
that such a leap, for example,until international master level
.
And it was just about the timethat I was coming to Sweden for

(12:53):
my master's PhD studies.
You know, life kicked inbasically.
And I sort of understood that.
Okay, I had to choose betweenthese two things and for a
moment I focused on master's andPhD academia.

Daniel (13:04):
Sure, sure, absolutely.
That makes sense.
So, yeah, let's talk about that.
It's a perfect uh segue to thenext part that I wanted to
discuss, which is this periodwhere you, you know, you start
to work on your phd in cognitivescience.
Was that a period where you,you set chess aside mostly, or
what was going on for you atthat time?

Can (13:19):
yeah, exactly so.
First masters and then phdquite intense years, of course.
Yeah, like, if you think aboutthe phd years, for anyone I
guess it's quite intense andyour whole life becomes your phd
topic.
You know it's very hard to liketake a step back and explore,
like put so much time on someother hobbies.
And it was a similar processfor me.
Um, you know, and it was justbeautiful, of course, because I

(13:43):
was also interested in thatfield, you know, doing
experiments with differentspecies.
Even with ravens I did someexperiments, you know.
That explains their planningand self-control skills and so
on, which connects to chess insome sense.
You know those skills, so itwas quite fascinating, yeah, but
then since you know, once chessis in your system, it's very
difficult to get low, of course.
So I was still watching someYouTube, reading some books in

(14:05):
the weekends.
You know, in my free time, Evenlike as a book nerd myself, I
was gathering positions acrossthe years, you know, when I find
like interesting game, I wassaving them in my databases,
which later actually helped meform those courses on Chessable.
Yeah, Like as a book nerd, as aguy who knows much about chess
history and so on, I think thatalso helped me across the years.
I finally created my chess bookcourses, but I was always I

(14:27):
mean never, you know lost intouch with the game.
I was even I was remembering Iwas doing guest mood training as
well in my PhD years.
You know, I was just taking amaster game, let's say
Capablanca-Lasca WorldChampionship, and I was playing
like Capablanca, I was guessingthe moves of Copa Blanca because
, randomly, you know, oh, let'ssee how Copa Blanca played
against Lasker.
I find interesting, let's focuson that for this month.

(14:49):
You know, Right, Like totallyimmersion, random immersion of
the game itself.

Daniel (14:54):
Yeah, yes, that's great that it was still.
You know, I mean, like you said, you couldn't do it at the same
level of intensity becauseyou're working on your PhD
program, but that's great thatit was still part of what you
were doing, even during thatperiod.
You said something interestingthat caught my ear, which was
that, even though you wereheavily focused on your PhD
program, you couldn't completelyleave behind chess.
That it was always with you andyou were thinking about it.

(15:16):
Do you find, because youimmersed yourself so much in
cognitive science during thatperiod and beyond, do you find
that cognitive science still isalways something that you
reflect on, even as you're doingall of this chess?

Can (15:28):
Absolutely.
If you think about the historyof cognitive science, chess
plays a huge role, right Evenwhen it comes to formulation of
intelligence by Alan Turing andso on.
People thought that chess isthe game that measures through
intelligence, which is not thecase, of course.
But if you look at thehistorical development of
cognitive science, chess alsoplayed a vital role.

(15:49):
They even say like chess islike a fruit fly of cognitive
science.
You know like they did manyexperiments because it's a
closed system.
We can measure the performanceobjectively, which is very
difficult when it comes to otherdomains of cognitive science.
You know, like chess at leastgives a certain rating point
which is more or less accurate.
So, and also, yeah, it's aclosed system.
Yeah, it's easier to doexperiments using the chess
boards, Like, if you think abouthistorical experiments, like in
the 70s by Simons, they gavechess positions to masters and

(16:12):
amateurs.
Masters are much better inremembering positions if they
are meaningful, while amateursare much less so.
Right, but then it comes torandom positions, it's more or
less the same, Like masterslacking those chunks are also
doing quite poorly, and so on.
So if you look at thehistorical development of
cognitive science, I think chessdefinitely played a big role

(16:33):
and still I'm thinking aboutthat a lot when I'm creating my
courses using cognitivescientific methods for best
learning outcomes and for beststructuring of my lessons or
courses.
They are still quite relevant.
You know, educational humansthink how memories are formed,
how learning takes place.
So it's quite relevant.
I think that yeah, for sure.

Daniel (16:53):
I mean it's amazing that you have that background and I
can only wish, based oneverything you just said right
now, that we could just spend awhole extra separate hour on
that alone, because you know,like the intersection between
chess and cognitive science,which, as you said, is large, I
mean I feel like even if wededicated one one hour episode
on that, we would just scratchthe surface absolutely.
When did you earn your phd?

(17:14):
What year was that?
That was in 2000 2017.

Can (17:19):
Oh my god, it's been almost eight years now.

Daniel (17:21):
Yes, yes, almost eight years, okay so then, now we come
to a critical moment in yourchess life again, which is
during the pandemic in 2020.
Yes, I guess now we're a fewyears out from when you earned
your PhD and in that year youstarted coaching chess part-time
, that's right.
What led to this new path foryou, where you decided to say,
okay, I want to start coaching.

Can (17:42):
Yeah, you know, pandemic was a time of re-evaluation
right In life, like people werejust changing their trajectories
, thinking about their path inlife and so on.
It was a moment of reflection,and it was definitely a moment
of reflection for me too.
Life changes took place.
My son was born in 2019.
You know, it's a huge change inlife as well.

(18:03):
So then, of course, in the backof my, I sort of also wanted to
have a plan B in life.
You know, just in case andchess is beautiful, that's my
hobby.
So, because of COVID, becauseeverybody was locked down and
chess was so huge after theQueen's Gambit, I decided, at
least in the weekends, you know,maybe give some lessons to
people.
Maybe I like, because I knowthat I was very much into

(18:25):
teaching as well.
You know I love to teach.
So I thought, why don't I justat least try to see, give some
lessons and see how it goes?
That's how it started.
There was this even websitethat is now shut down called
coachescom.
They were just.
You know, every coach can join,people decide their hourly fee,
and then, you know, anyone canapply, anyone can become your
student.
So then I thought, okay, whydon't I just try?

(18:49):
I got some students fromdifferent parts of the world.
You know, just started fromsomething very small, like in
the evening, sometimes in theweekends, and people gave me
amazing feedback and then justgrow from there.
You know like it's a beautifulcycle.
I also, of course, I saw my owninterests as well.
I love what I was doing there,helping people grow.
My positions were already there.
I was also forming newpositions when it comes to my
future courses on Chessable thatI was giving to my students.

(19:11):
So the entire cycle sort ofstarted there at the pandemic
time and then gradually fromyear to year, people told each
other and so on and graduallyjust improved from there and at
some point with Chessable we candiscuss later, of course, with
Chessable courses at some pointit even became yeah, why don't I
just take it for life?
You know my first topic.

Daniel (19:33):
Right, that's how it all started.
That's amazing.
I love hearing about that.
I mean, it's one thing to juststate it factually, but I don't
know if necessarily everyonelistening understands that's a
big decision.
I mean, you put so many yearsinto your PhD program, so much
effort to make a decision tomove towards chess is a massive

(19:54):
one.
But it also speaks to just howmuch you were loving chess and
helping others with it.

Can (20:00):
Yeah, it was always there, always, love was always there,
even my colleagues on PhD, Imean, they bought me some chess
pieces involving ravens andbirds I mean they knew the
passion was there.
It was always there.
My life story is around chessmostly I mean they knew the
passion was there.
It was always there.
You know, Like my life story is, around chess mostly.
So this was a beautiful moment.
I mean I cannot really thankthe virus, covid virus but
definitely it changed my life,at least for the good, for the

(20:21):
moment, you know.

Daniel (20:23):
Yeah, yeah, I hear you.
I'm in a similar boat as wellin terms of that time period
impacting me a lot with my chesslife.
So you, as you referencedalready, you already started.
You eventually started puttingmore of your time into branching
out with chess.
Beyond just coaching, you movedinto course creation with
Chessable and, you know,eventually that led to its own

(20:45):
big endeavor for you, where youcreated many courses with
Chessable and still are.
I'm curious, what made you wantto focus on course creation?
I mean, you know there'sseveral different choices you
can choose from in pursuing achess career where you're
helping others.

Can (21:01):
Yeah for sure.
It's one of those cases youknow in life, like you replay
the tape of life and it can goto whole different directions.
You know, like, if you restartthe tape of life, for example,
like 600 million years ago,there is no guarantee whatsoever
that humans will evolve in theend.
It's one of those cases too.
You know, one summer in 2021, Icome back from Turkey for a
vacation I see Simon Williamsadvertising create your own

(21:24):
course competition on Chessable.
You know, he's just advertisingit.
Like, for the first time,people can create their courses
and then, if they pick it up,top eight will be published as a
course.
Of course, I was getting someaccessible courses, I was
studying some courses there, butit wasn't something that I was
seriously considering.
Before I saw that ad for thefirst time, I told myself, okay,

(21:44):
I have one month to apply,let's see what happens.
Force yourself, organize, applyand see what happens.
Yeah, because I was alreadycoaching by then, maybe around
one year already.
Yeah, so I already had somematerial.
Of course, also because ofthose years of experience and
accumulation of those games andso on, I hit some material.
So I just told myself, okay,organize, learn how chessable

(22:05):
works, learn how to create thecourse, which is actually not
that easy, right?
So that took a long time toeven like figure out.
You know how to organize aChessable course.
So then I applied like veryclose to deadline, I think I
applied.
And then the interesting thingis this the course was not
picked as top eight, butChessable team still liked the
course and they still wanted topublish the course.
You know, it was like againlike replay the tape and maybe I

(22:28):
wasn't here.
So then the course waspublished by the end of 2021.
It's called the Art ofExchanging Pieces.
That was my first everchessable course.
I'm also very much intostrategic part of chess, so
exchanging pieces is quitebeautiful to me, you know.
It shows the true depth ofchess and so on.
So and then suddenly again justlike ear to ear, it just

(22:50):
organically grow across theyears, people told each other,
people gave amazing ratings tothat course.
They were even like I mean,this hidden gem of a course.
Nobody knows about the author.
Who is this guy?
You know just gradually,gradually evolved, like you
could see, the entire, you know,organic process of development.
Again, nothing that I couldexpect, by the way.
You know I had no expectationwhatsoever.
I applied and and because ofthat motivating feedback, of

(23:13):
course, then I produce othercourses.
You know, it became the art ofseries, like art of pieces turn
into art of series.

Daniel (23:19):
Yeah, after four courses too yes, yeah, well, I imagine
you must really enjoy coursecreation, or at least the
results that come from them,considering how many you've done
.
I mean you know some peoplejust do one, two or three, but
you how many you've done.
I mean you know some peoplejust do one, two or three, but
you've done quite a few beyondthat, and you know sky's the
limit on where you end up in anumber of courses.
So did you feel like thatreally suited you well?

Can (23:41):
Yeah, as an academic, you know I like writing.
I like to convey information inthis medium of either writing
or video production.
I need to also make a systemthat is scalable, that I can
give it to maybe other peopleother than my students.
But of course, the main thoughtwas how do I help my own
students, how do I give themmaterial that is really
structured, that can reallytrack certain skills so they can

(24:02):
actually improve on that skill?
So it's a combination of tryingto help my own students, given
what their mistakes were, givenmy lessons.
Of course, that was huge.
We can talk about that as well.
You know importance of givinglessons so you can see their
mistake types and so on.
But also, yeah, finding thatmedium that I can speak to other
people as well.
You know that's just Chessablegave me that, the medium that I

(24:23):
can write and convey theinformation to a vast amount of
students in the world.
I mean that was beautiful tosee, yeah, that's fantastic.

Daniel (24:29):
Like a publishing medium .
Yeah, exactly, that's great.
So not only do you have quite afew testable courses, but for
those listening who may not knowthis, you also have won several
awards for them, includingCommunity Author of the Year and
, most recently, in 2024, authorof the Year, which I feel like
correct me if I'm wrong I thinkis like the biggest, broadest

(24:50):
award that they have.

Can (24:51):
Yeah, huge yeah.

Daniel (24:52):
So I'm going to ask you to kind of pat yourself on the
back a little bit, and that'sperfectly fine, but I'm curious
to know what is unique about youand why do you?
Think chess students reallyenjoy your work to the point
that you're getting awards likethis.
What stands out about yourcourses?

Can (25:07):
Yeah, again, it's hard to maybe praise myself here, daniel
, but I will do my best, try tohave my own hypothesis of why
that's the case.
You know, first of all, it's anamazing honor, it's such a
humbling reward.
You know, again, noexpectations whatsoever, I mean,
this year I got the award.
I was like what, Like I had noidea, I had no expectations
whatsoever.
Yeah, so because, also, youknow, there are so many big
names like giants out there,like names like giants out there

(25:30):
.
Even Gary Kasparov was therethis year.
I beat Gary for at least onegame I beat.
Gary I can tell my grandchildren.
So there are huge names as well.
As a chess nerd myself, I wasbrought up with sometimes
reading those giants like JacobAgard, gary Kasparov and so on.
So, it's an amazing pleasure andhonor to be among them right
now, and also it became thebiggest publishing platform out

(25:53):
there.
Everybody publishes onChessable, you know.
So it's a huge competition aswell at some point, yes, at this
day and age.
So that definitely is ahumbling experience.
But when it comes to yourquestion, I think again it's a
combination of academicbackground, my work with my
students, and cognitive sciencebackground.
You know, I'm really doing mybest to structure it for best

(26:13):
learning outcomes.
I know where the students are.
I want to meet them where theyare currently so they don't get
overwhelmed by complexinformation that is so beyond
their level.
Because we are sometimes, youknow, at least when it comes to
beginners, because I've workedmostly with beginners and, let's
say, intermediate players Icould see, you know, across four
years of coaching, I could seetheir level, I could see what

(26:35):
information was overwhelming forthem and what should be
structured, you know, blockedinto chunks and so on, and
explain clearly with connectingto why information and so on.
So if I never gave coaching, ifI never coach people, I will
never win this award.
You know, that's 100%.
Sure, I can totally tell youthat, certainly I will never win
this award.
You know that's 100% sure.
I can totally tell you thatthat's certainly.
I will never win this award ifI didn't coach people regularly.

(26:56):
So that organic process of mecoaching people, seeing their
mistakes, gathering positionsthat ultimately lead to
Chessable courses with all thewhy, information and so on, is
the key, I think, for that cycle.
And also of course, chessablecourses.
People gave me great feedbackon Chessable as well, the
community as well on Chessable.
They gave me great feedback,which you know leads to better
courses in the future.

(27:17):
Yeah, I also improve over time,of course, with that feedback,
but it's also maybe about likingteaching.
If you love teaching, thenyou're probably good at Chess
and Walter as well.
That's probably also one partof the story.
I like to help people, I like toteach people.
I like to break down complexinformation to something clear.
You know I'm very much intothis.
How do I break it down so itmakes sense for people?

(27:38):
How do I explain this in plainenglish so it makes sense for
people?
You know, yeah, I'm always doingmy best to to convey this
complexity which is, you know,chess is one of the most complex
sports out there.
So, yeah, yes, and what we knowfrom cognitive science is
working memory is so limited inhumans we have only, you know,
seven pieces of information thatwe can think at a time.
So if you look at chessbeginner, they are immediately

(28:01):
overwhelmed with this complexity.
You know, they are immediatelyoverwhelmed, like they are
looking at one side of the board.
They are missing out on otherpieces on the other side.
Yeah, very, very typical, forexample, because they can only
encode so much information at atime.
So we sometimes as strongplayers, as grandmasters most
likely as well they reallyreally sometimes overestimate
how much beginners know or howeasily they can get overwhelmed.

(28:22):
So that's the issue as well.
I think I'm also advantageousthere because I learned chess at
a relatively late age.
I think that's also myadvantage here Because there are
still some things that I canconsciously recall.
You know the process that I wasgoing through that led to
learning and improvement ofcertain skills which might you
know, some grandmasters mighttake for granted because they

(28:43):
learned them as kids, you know,yes, so that also could be one
story here, actually inhindsight yeah, for sure.

Daniel (28:50):
Lots of great reasons.
Yeah, and it's just.
I just want to congratulate youagain on those awards, john and
I mean it's clear to me why youwon those I mean just talking
to you, why you won those awards.
Your enthusiasm for the game,your understanding yeah, it's
really impressive and that'sreally exciting that you won
those too.
So huge congrats to you, and Ihope you have many more coming.

Can (29:10):
It's all born out of this passion, which never leave me,
you know, and that's huge aswell.
Like if a teacher is passionate, I think students are also
motivated, you know.

Daniel (29:17):
Exactly.
Yeah, I wanted to say thatactually is one of the things
that really stood out to me isyour enthusiasm for the game,
for talking about it, for beingconnected to it.

Can (29:37):
Yeah, it's so amazing to see, even under a store, for
example, jacob if you look atbig guys as well, I mean they
they still kept this passion andinterest about the game.
They can talk about the gamelike forever, you know.
Yeah, that's exactly.

Daniel (29:48):
I mean, I think that's an underlying common thread
amongst the people who are bestteaching.
It is their love for the gameis so strong.
Yeah, absolutely so, john.
We're getting into discussingyour chessable courses.
You know the awards that you'vewon and why you've enjoyed
doing them, so now I'd like todive into a specific topic
within one of them, and it'syour most recent course entitled

(30:11):
preventing blunders in chess,which is a fantastic title.

Can (30:16):
Yeah, very ambitious title.
By the way, don't sue me please, guys, if you're still
blundering.
It is maybe all humans weblunder, right right, right,
yeah, uh, limiting maybe, butmaybe that's not as as not a
sexy title.

Daniel (30:27):
No right exactly but uh, in any case, yeah, I want to
dive into that course.
I want to talk about some ofthe ins and outs of it so people
understand your work.
But also I want to explore thattopic for people because I
can't imagine there's onelistener who says no, no, no, I
don't need any help withblundering, I'm perfect on that.
So I just it's like so, yeah,I'm excited to get some insights

(30:49):
from you on this and dive intoit.
So let's spend a little time onthis course.
So most chess players know thatnot committing a blunder is
vital to do.
They already kind of know thatif they've been playing at least
several months.
But I don't know if theynecessarily understand its
importance in the ways that youdo, because it's more than just
so that way you don't lose thegame.

(31:10):
I mean yes, of course, but Ithought when you described why
it's important not to blunder inyour course, you had some
really great insights into why.
So can you share a couple ofthose?

Can (31:21):
Yeah, I mean, chess is one of the most cruel sports in the
world, right?
If you think about that, asingle blunder at any moment in
the game can erase all yourother advantages.
You know you can play 20 movesperfectly best game in your life
.
One little blunder andeverything is lost.
So it's purely because of thiscomplexity of the game and,
let's say, coolness of the gamethat we should work on blunder

(31:42):
checking even more to raise ourfloor.
Because if you think about that, most players like to increase
their ceiling when it comes tochess improvement.
You know they want to get maybethe latest course, maybe they
want to learn 25, you know movesin theory, they want to
memorize some moves, let's say,go in 25 moves in depth.
So they really do their best,maybe do some real hardcore
endgame work.
You know Like they can improvetheir ceiling with such work,

(32:04):
but surprisingly there aren't somany in the chess world when it
comes to raising the floorexercises.
So to my mind, you know chesscalculation has three steps.
The first step is whenever youropponent makes a move, you must
ask yourself what would theyplay if I don't make a move
right now?
You must always start fromseeing the threat first.
That's one way that people makemistakes.
Yeah, that's the first question.

(32:25):
I already created chessable.
Yeah, that's the first step.
My opponent's last move, thatwas the entire topos of the
course.
Then comes second stagecandidate move generation.
You generate candidate movesthat speak to the position and
there are countless of books andcourses written on this second
stage.
You know strategic thinking,all these ideas, of course.
Yeah, before you make that move, before you play that candidate

(32:50):
move that you come up with, youhave to go through the blunder
check process.
That's, you know, stage numberthree in this three-leg cycle,
and what it means is that youwill make that move.
But before you make that move,you need to ask yourself whether
your opponent can defeat thatmove, whether your move changes
things that allow a winningtactic for the opponent right?
That's my definition of ablunder in chess.
That's very opponent right.
That's my definition of ablunder in chess.

(33:11):
That's very specific right.
That excludes, for example, thefirst stage that I mentioned.
That excludes you not seeingthe opponent's threat.
That's a whole, separate andimportant, crucial process.
But that's different thanblunder, because blunder happens
when your very move changesthings that allows a winning
tactic for the opponent, whichwasn't there before.
You know they don't threatenanything, but your very move

(33:33):
allows that tactic.
So these are, you know, twodifferent processes.
And, as Dan Heisman says, yeah,is your move safe approach?
Is your move safe or are youplaying hope chess?
That's what he called DanHeisman.
He calls this hope chess.
People come up with a candidatemove, they play it, hoping that
it's safe, right, hoping thatthe opponent doesn't punish them
.
But usually they are punished.

(33:54):
So this was borne out also frommy own work with my students.
I have to give them somethingright, because I keep seeing
those kind of mistakes, but forsome reason there are not enough
resources in the chess worldthat fixes this process.
Yeah, so, yeah.
So, since I already created onecourse for the first stage,
this is just a finalizer.
You know, the final course isabout raising the floor and at

(34:16):
least we are covered when itcomes to these two crucial
processes.
Yeah, and both, of course,involve the opponent's resources
, which is difficult for humans.
Yeah, because then wishfulthinking kicks in, confirmation
bias kicks in.
You know, we humans tend tolook at bright side of our ideas
, but this process involves amental shift, complete mental
shift.
You start searching for thebest move for your opponent

(34:36):
against your move, right.
This whole refutation mindsetmust kick in.
By the way, this blunder checkprocess resembles the scientific
method the most, because that'salso what scientists do.
Scientists don't seek forconfirming evidence.
They seek for counter evidencefrom the world before they
accept a hypothesis.
Right, like they activelysearch for potential refutations
of their ideas before theyaccept a hypothesis.

(34:57):
Just the same process alsotakes place when it comes to
blunders.
You come up with a certain move, but before you play the move,
you have to go through a certainprocess.
Maybe we can also talk aboutthat.
Maybe clamp process I came upwith, but also your question.

Daniel (35:09):
Yes, yeah, we'll get to that for sure.
Yeah, clamp process I came upwith, yes, also your question.
Yes, yeah, we'll get to thatfor sure.
Yeah, yes, yeah.
So that's that's all greatinsights, john.
You know, I want to kind ofmake a case for why someone
should spend hours and hourslearning how to not blunder
because, like I said, I think alot of players are even starting
at the beginner level.
They know try not to blunder,and somewhere along the way, I
think a lot of club players alsolearn that one of the best ways

(35:33):
to do that is to look forchecks, captures and threats.
Yeah, and I just want tounderstand why it's not enough,
or maybe, you know, not top notperfect yeah, it's not perfect
to just say to yourself okay,remember checks, captures,
threats like why should we gobeyond that and spend hours in

(35:53):
your course?

Can (35:54):
Yeah, so it's a huge question, of course.
So to me, checks, captures,threats is not a terrible idea.
It can help for some players ata certain level and also some
positions might give you goodresults by purely applying check
, capture, threat search.
If you feel like, for example,the position is very tactical,
if you feel like there is sometactic in a position that you

(36:15):
cannot easily find, you know,even like going through this
process systematically check,capture, threat might help you
find the best move.
I'm not saying it's all youknow nonsense to do so, right,
yeah, but if you blindly applythat process to every single
move, then you will lose on timebecause it's a very
unstructured process as well,especially the threat part.

(36:35):
You know what is the threat.
Yeah, when you look at aposition, can you instantly
identify all the threats on theboard?
It's so hard because it'slacking a concrete target.
Yeah, because we have moretarget when it comes to checks.
Yeah, because we know where theking is, so it's easier to you
know.
Make it more concrete to seethe checks.
But what's the threat?
What's the threat you know?
Right, so this was born out.
Also, captures is a little bittoo generic, you know like you
start randomly looking at everysingle capture.

(36:56):
Most captures doesn't make anysense.
Yeah Right, exactly.
Even there, you know, I havesome problems to understand,
like, at least when it comes toscalability of things, when it
comes to giving a recipe to allkinds of chess players that they
can apply.
It's also not perfect, for sureit has to improve, right.
So this was also borne out fromthis search, for I should give
them something that is moreconcrete.

(37:17):
It lands on more concretetargets that they can check to
quickly blunder check theirmoves.
Now, of course, you can applythis same clan checklist for
attacking contexts, right,that's the transferability of
the course.
It is also quite good, becauseif you fix this process, if you
apply this checklist, then alsoyou can punish the opponent's
blunders by the same token.
Yes, so it was born out fromthis.

(37:38):
Basically, I just okay.
What are the cues from thechessboard that signals a
blunder?
When do tactics take place?
When do tactics emerge?
Chess, usually, right.
Of course.
We should start with c, by theway, because when your king is
exposed, right, you're about tomake a move, but your king is
exposed lacking pawn cover.
Always you should ask yourselfam I allowing a check to the
opponent if I make that moveright?

(37:59):
That's a crucial question.
Checkmate ends the game.
So definitely not every singlemove.
When your king is safe, thatquestion is also irrelevant.
But when you feel your king isstuck in a standard open lines
against the king, yeah, askyourself if I make this move, am
I allowing a check to theopponent?
Yeah, letter C.
Then comes L loose pieces andsquares in chess.

(38:19):
L Because if you think aboutthat, most chess tactics emerge
from loose pieces on the board.
Right, as John Nunn says, loosepieces drop off and it's
targetably scalable.
I can tell you every singleloose piece on a board at all
times.
You know, we can clearly seethose loose pieces.
And loose pieces are defined inmy course as pieces having equal
number of attackers anddefenders.
For example, a bishop is oneattacker but also one defender.

(38:41):
That makes the bishop loose.
At that point, if it's zeroversus zero, it's also loose
piece.
Yeah, because loose pieces arealso expose yourself to double
attacks or remove the guardtactics.
There are some chess tacticsthat are associated with loose
pieces.
That's a great insight.
Yeah, I like that Also.
Squares can become loose inchess right.
Imagine a back rank, let's saya particular square on the back

(39:03):
rank, that is, zero attackers orzero defenders, but then you
start attacking that square.
Yeah, it can lead to checkmate,for example.
So we can also think aboutparticular squares, empty
squares on the board that canbecome loose or even hanging in
my course.
Yeah, so L is the second stage.
Of course it's a huge stage andof course most blunders happen
because of L.
Again, as I said, let's say youmove a bishop to attack

(39:25):
something, but you don't askyourself what that bishop move
unprotects, right?
Your bishop was guarding, let'ssay, a particular square and you
moved it and that square becamehanging and that was a blunder.
Right, the opponent punishesyour move because of that.
The humans, again, we focus onthe things that our moves do and
we often ignore what our movesno longer does.

(39:45):
Right, it's called second ordereffect or secondary effects of
our move.
Human cognition.
You know, because we tend tolook at, yeah, the bishop does
something there, but nobody askswhat the bishop no longer does
on that square.
Yeah, but that's my whole point.
You know, before you create aloose piece on the board, you
must tell yourself hang on asecond.
You know that should serve likea trigger, Trigger, you know,

(40:06):
that's enough for starting thewhole process of blunder
checking, because if you take astep back, if you see that
trigger, there's a much higherchance that you spot the blunder
at that point, yeah, yeah,again, very targetable,
connecting to certain things onthe board, loose pieces and so
on.
Yeah, and then, of course,followed by a alignments.
Alignments involves vertical,horizontal, diagonal alignment.
Also includes night forkalignments and pawn fork

(40:29):
alignments.
In this course I compiledeverything as letter a and again
, most tactics emerge because ofalignments on the board, as you
know, for example, pins,skewers, discover attacks all
involve certain because ofalignments on the board.
As you know, for example, pins,skewers, discover attacks all
involve certain alignments onthe board, right, yeah, so if
your very move creates a certainalignment between important
pieces, trigger, right, youshould just take a step back and
ask yourself maybe that's ablunder, maybe you're allowing a

(40:50):
skewer, for example, or like apin, right?
Or you have to also take intoaccount existing alignments on
the board, that you have to bemuch more careful, yeah, that
you don't give a tactic to theopponent, for example.
Again, it's targetable.
It's targetable than checkingfor all kind of threats on the
board, which is much more vague?
Yeah.
And then finally, m part istrappable pieces, in other words
mobility restrictions.

(41:11):
If you make that move, are yougiving less mobility to one of
your piece, thus it becomestrappable.
The opponent can trap thatpiece.
Yeah, because that involves awhole different kind of chess
tactical pattern.
Yeah, you cannot deduce atrappable piece from loose
pieces or alignments.
They involve separate processes.
That's why they deserve aseparate checklist letter.
Right, sometimes you make abishop move, but your knight

(41:34):
becomes trapped.
Right, it's not always thepiece that you move that becomes
trapped.
So it's also on those topicsthat we also train yeah, so
always vigilant about loosepieces or travel pieces.
And finally, p is about pastpawns, and they only work in
endgame stage, mostly, when thepast pawns become important,
right Like, you make a pawn move, for example, and you allow a

(41:54):
breakthrough, you allow theopponent's past pawn to become a
queen.
Yeah, many, many blunders alsohappen in the endgame because of
such P parts that people don'tsee.
They don't see the opponent'spass pawns becoming a queen, for
example.
Yeah, so in the end I thoughtfor a long time.
I think this clamp is the mostcomprehensive checklist when it
comes to preventing blunders ormaybe even chess tactics.

(42:15):
If you have to summarizeeverything with five letters, I
think this is the mostcomprehensive five letters that
prevents them.

Daniel (42:22):
Yes, I'm super impressed with it.
I mean, it's brilliant actuallyin the ways that it goes beyond
just the simplicity maybeoversimplicity of checks,
captures and threats.
It makes it more detailed, itmakes it more helpful.
I think it's a fantasticconcept and I love that you have
a whole course that allows youto train those ideas.
But just one clarification onthe P is that just past pawns or

(42:43):
is it pawns in general, justpast pawns?

Can (42:46):
Just past pawns.
Yes, it's only about past pawns.
Pawns are important as well inthe course, but they mostly
connect to the L part.
Yeah, because pawn moves alwaysweaken something.
Right, you make a pawn move andyou weaken a particle square,
for example, and that connectsto this L part in our checklist
mostly.

Daniel (43:01):
Yes, I mean, even that alone, I think, is really
helpful to remember that everypawn move weakens something
Right and I, you know, I imaginea lot of club players forget
that it's huge yeah.
Just one other insight that Iwant to discuss in your course,
John and that is something Inoticed that you talked about in
it which was that humans arepretty good at central vision,

(43:27):
looking at like what's directlyin front of us, but not so great
at peripheral vision, and thisfact alone causes a lot of
blunders, and I just want to getyour feedback, because if
that's inherent in how we seethings, how do we overcome it?
Can we train to not?

Can (43:43):
have that be an instinct.
Yeah, it's hard.
I even made a podcast episodeabout this subject with
Professor Benjamin Balas.
He's a professor in visionscience, also a cognitive
scientist himself in NorthDakota University in the States.
He's also a chess player.
He writes blogs on lead chess.
He's a great guy, so heexplained to me as well from a
scientific perspective.

(44:03):
Indeed, so when it comes topeople missing out on fianchetto
bishops, sniper bishops,especially beginners, right,
because they're on the periphery, they're on the side of the
board and beginner's mind, asmentioned, can easily get
overwhelmed by information onthe board, easily get
overwhelmed by information onthe board.
So beginners usually are goodat focusing on the center of the
board, sometimes on one side ofthe board.
They miss out on other thingson the other side.
Yeah, board vision didn'tdevelop yet for beginners and

(44:26):
that explains most of theirblunders.
Right, they just don't even seethe bishop on there.
The board is too crowded, theboard is too big for beginners,
and that's also about humancognition.
He even calls visual crowdingphenomenon, which is a pervasive
phenomenon in human cognition,fianchetto.
If you think about that,fianchetto bishops are usually
cluttered by other pieces.
Yeah, right.
There are kings rooks pawns.

(44:47):
This is called visual crowding.
When that happens, you don'teven you notice them even less.
So bishop becomes even moreinvisible.
Purely from a scientificperspective, it's called visual
something.
That's why it's even moredifficult to see such Stanford
bishops from a human cognitiveperspective or visual system
perspective.
But there's hope.
The first hope is thatknowledge is important.

(45:08):
So now beginners know theirlimitations, so they should
again actively zoom out beforethey make a move.

Daniel (45:15):
Some sort of checklist again.

Can (45:16):
Before they make a move, zoom out and make one final
check.
Look at the entire board onelast time.
Yeah, it can start slowly, itwill feel weird, but if you do
it consistently it will becomeyour second nature remind
yourself.
Second good hope is thisthere's also scientific evidence
that strong players encodeinformation as single unit of
chunks, so they have largerchunks of information.

(45:38):
So strong players, even thoughwhen they are looking at the
center of the board, they arenoticing those fianchetto
bishops even more.
Their vision is improving asthey can encode higher or more
larger chunks in their memoriesthan they don't even miss out on
cyber bishops.
Even though they look at thecenter, they can still notice
these things because of years ofexperience.
They've seen so many similarpatterns before and they can

(46:00):
even see those things.
So their vision is changing.
Their perception is changingwith expertise, with
accumulation of chunks acrossthe years.
So that's a good.

Daniel (46:10):
Second, good thing that will help eventually.
Yeah, that's fantastic, greatinsights.
So yeah, I mean, john, as youcan probably tell from my
questions and the way Idescribed it, I did go through
some of your course on.
Blenders.
Yeah, and I think it'sfantastic.
I had trouble pulling myselfaway and saying, okay, I've done
my research because I wanted tojust keep learning from it,
because it was so good.
So, yeah, congrats on creatingan awesome course.

(46:31):
I recommend everyone check itout.
I'll have a link in the shownotes that will link to that so
people can get it.
And yeah, I couldn't recommendit more highly.
I think it's fantastic.

Can (46:41):
That's amazing, daniel.
You know what's more amazing tome, even more motivating, when
people tell me they're havingall-time rating highs after
going through my courses.
I heard similar things fromboth for Blunder Check but also
for the first step.
You know my opponent's lastmove Recently also, I've heard
from four or five people onlyweek that they're having
all-time high ratings aftergoing through those raise the
floor courses.
Raise the floor.
That was the entire point.

(47:02):
The whole claim is this If youstart raising your floor, your
rating will see the effects.
You know that explains most ofyour losses in your games.
So that's my hope.

Daniel (47:11):
Yeah, that's fantastic, that's great news.
I can hardly imagine motivating.

Can (47:15):
It's amazing.
It's amazingly motivating as anauthor to have such feedback.

Daniel (47:19):
Fantastic.
Just one last comment slashquestion on your course, just a
small one.
Up to what level would you sayis your course helpful?
Yeah, good question.

Can (47:28):
I mean all the way from even 800 to 2000 was the main
major range, because there aredifficult levels of 40 different
difficult levels.
Yeah, it starts from level oneall the way to level four, so
everyone can see some value inthose final puzzles.
But I even heard like from onebeta tester he was around 2,000,
even more than 2,000.
And he told me that he evenbenefited from the course.
Some puzzles were stillchallenging for him and his

(47:50):
mental framework has shifted.
Yeah, the entire clamp methodwas new for him as well.
So new for him as well.
So now he's also trying toincorporate that when it comes
to his game as well.
So I heard good things about itas well from plus 2 000 players
overall, that's.

Daniel (48:03):
That's amazing.
Yeah, so pretty.
I'd say probably at least 99 ofmy audience could benefit from
it.
That's great yeah yeah, so nexttopic I'd love to discuss with
you, john, is your youtubechannel.
That's another big part of whatyou're up to.
You have a fantastic channel.
I know you.
You launched it in 2023.
Well, you know I not accordingto youtube's time stamp, but

(48:23):
like you really put you made abig focus for yourself,
beginning in 2023 for it.
And I mean, given how many chessyoutube channels are out there,
what would you say is differentabout yours?
What stands out about yourchannel?

Can (48:35):
yeah, I would say again this very much educational,
psychology-based, cognitive,science-based, you know,
instructional value-basedcontent avoids BS, avoids, you
know, do this and reach 2,003steps.
Chess is easy kind of you know,bs things that are so pervasive
on YouTube terrain.
I want to avoid it as much as Ican.
I want to avoid it as much as Ican, also knowing that

(48:57):
thumbnail and title game is hugeon YouTube, because when I try
the other way around, nobodywatches the video.
So there's always you know this, let's say, tension between you
.
Create some content that isactually quite good and avoid BS
, but also make it engaging interms of title and thumbnail
game.
Right, I see, yeah, but if youreally ask, like, what separates
them?
Yes, again, my teachingbackground, my coaching

(49:19):
background, my work with mystudents and touching these deep
connections, deep learning andalso why information you know I
try to break it down for myaudience and really, really try
to explain to them.
So make it clear and conciseand manageable.
Yeah, so they don't getoverwhelmed.
I sometimes make videos and youknow I still get some feedback
from people because nowexpectations are much higher, so

(49:40):
people even expect a lot frommy videos.
So sometimes they see some, butyou didn't teach us that.
I was overwhelmed at that pointbecause that information wasn't
really taught to me before andI was expecting this from you,
so I even increased theirexpectations.
Right now they want me toreally, really go through every
single concept, start fromsomething very simple, build up
gradually in complexity anddeliver perfectly.

(50:02):
If I can do it, of course thatwill be amazing.
That's also my goal overallwith my videos.
Sometimes I cannot do itperfectly, but that's the aim
overall To make it manageablefor all kinds of different
levels, beginners and newplayers, while always
transferring my passion for thegame as well, you know, to make
it also fun for people to watchyeah, yeah, that's, that's

(50:23):
fantastic.

Daniel (50:24):
I mean, a couple things that you said stood out to me
one I mean maybe this wouldn'tsound like some place to lead
from for promoting a youtubechannel for chess, but it does
to me which is that you saidlike no bs and just being more
honest about you knowexpectations in terms of what
people will get from a videowhere you know you're not,
you're not overstating oroverselling what can be achieved

(50:45):
from that video and I see, Isee that too much, unfortunately
, in YouTube and not, it goesobviously it goes beyond chess
as well and I mean I know that'sgot to be tough to balance with
the other thing that you saidis has been helping you, which
is creating more compellingthumbnails and, yes, and titles
for videos.
I mean it's hard to balancethat, like make it more
compelling, but also still behonest.
It is.

Can (51:04):
It is so difficult, you know, and I still couldn't find
a perfect solution after one anda half years.
I'm still struggling with that.
You know one side of me,because I, of course, I work
with thumbnail designers.
I give him some ideas, hecreates my thumbnails.
Yeah, sometimes he just pushsome flashy things you know,
like something crazy, right, andlike I don't need to bother,
like working with him, likespending two full days about

(51:24):
this thumbnail, or should I just, you know, publish it and see
what happens?
Sometimes I don't have time foras well.
Okay, just accept what he givesme.
But I know I I don't want to,you know, give false promises to
people, and I think I now havethis connection that people
trust me as well as an author,as a coach, you know.
So they also become maybe moreforgiving, you know.
Of course, they understand thatthat's not my intention, you
know.
You don't need to become somethumbnails.

(51:46):
That is maybe too exciting,yeah, for the taste of some
people.
I think this level of trust hasalso been built because I
respond to each and everycomment on YouTube as well.
Yeah, I respond, I answer toevery single question on YouTube
.
That's huge.
That's huge, yeah, and thatalso brings this organic, you
know, audience across the years,right, yeah, which might also

(52:07):
explain, you know why, why mycourses are also doing well,
because maybe those people arealso getting getting those
courses too.
You know, they see the valueacross the years, yeah yeah,
absolutely so.

Daniel (52:18):
You have a video.
Your most popular video rightnow, the one that's received the
most views, is titled how GoodCan Adults Get?
Oh yeah, my first ever video.

Can (52:29):
Terrible microphone quality , by the way.
Terrible audio quality, butthat became viral.

Daniel (52:35):
I know how it feels.
I'm sorry to draw attention tothe video that that, like you,
feel like isn't quite up tostandard tech For people
listening.
If you check it out, it getsbetter over time in his videos,
don't worry.
But it's a great topic though,nonetheless, and just
considering that it was mostpopular.
I know maybe part of that is alittle bit because of how long

(52:55):
it's been on your channel, but Ido think that that is something
that every adult wonders atsome point in their test
improvement journey.
So what's like a brief summaryof how you answer that question
in the video?

Can (53:06):
Yeah, it's actually a huge question.
Still, I think we don't knowthe full answer yet.
There still needs to be morecontrolled scientific
experiments should be done onthis, given that this day and
age of information overload in away that there are much more
resources these days when itcomes to technology and space
exploration and so on.
So maybe that will changeacross the years as well.
But I was basing the claims ina way that on one scientific

(53:29):
study which was done maybe 20years ago already, that looked
at different levels of players.
They asked them how much timethey put on chess in terms of
amounts of hours of study andhow well they improved across
the years, and one of thebiggest conclusions was that if
you start before the age of 12of getting serious about chess,
then you have much higher chanceof becoming international

(53:51):
master or grandmaster later onin life.
But if you start after age of12, then it's much less chance
maybe like 2% chance that youbecome IM or GM.
Yeah, that was like cut off linefor some reason.
We don't know exactly why, butthere was some sort of a cut off
line, more or less.
But there are so many unknownsin that study as well, you know,
for example, they didn't tellus what kind of chess activities

(54:11):
they were doing.
They only reported how muchtime onto chess.
You know, we don't know howeffortful they were looking at
chess or they were just playingbullet chess.
We had no idea.
So there needs to be, morestudies on this.
You know about the quality oftraining Because right now we
have amazing resources thesedays, so that master might
change.
But one conclusion was this Ifyou start, let's say, after 12,

(54:34):
if, if you do your best, then2,000 plus, even around 2,000,
is manageable, maybe like around55% chance that you can reach
level 2,000 as an adult.
Imagine you start at the age of30,.
Let's say, if you just do yourbest, it's still possible.
So there is not likeimpossibility there.
But it depends on, of course,quality of training, which we

(54:57):
don't know scientifically.
More studies should be done onthat.
So, for example, spacerepetition, the role of maybe
different courses, floor raisingcourses like mine, impact of
different courses, potentiallyimpact of different resources on
people's chest strength.
We still need to do so muchmore experiments.
Even when it comes to thewoodpecker method I was

(55:17):
discussing with Che Guevara.
He says we need money, you know, to understand how much.
How many cycles give you thebest improvement?
You know?
Is it one cycle or seven cycles?
We have no idea.
We need more studies.

Daniel (55:27):
So but overall I think there's hope even for adults.

Can (55:30):
Not that they can become grandmasters.
I think grandmasters is still,let's say, to reach around 2,000
, it seems to be doablescientifically.

Daniel (55:41):
Yeah, and I mean I think there's a huge difference
between how good can an adultbecome if they are starting at,
say, club level-ish, between arethey putting in a part-time
effort or a full-time effort.
That is right.
And there's a huge differencebetween your potential, then
right Between the two.

Can (55:57):
Huge.

Daniel (55:58):
And I feel like not enough adults appreciate that.
I mean, how great do you thinkyou can become at anything if
you're only putting in seven to10 hours a week?
I mean, do you think you willmaster anything?
No, I mean, you're not going tobecome a professional guitar
player, a professional pianist.
I mean it's not just a chessissue, Exactly.
So that's a big part of it.

Can (56:18):
I think it's a huge part of it.
According to one estimate byFernand Gobet, grandmasters know
around 300,000 chess chunks.
You know chess patterns.
They store it in theirlong-term memory.
300,000 to become a grandmaster?
You know it's huge.
It needs effortful trainingacross the years.
You know it's huge.

Daniel (56:36):
Absolutely years.
You know it's huge, absolutely,yeah.
The other point I wanted tomake about this topic, because I
think it's so fascinating, isthat you said that 2000 is
probably a reasonable upperlimit.
Let's call it upper limit.
Let's say yeah, and I feel likethat's fantastic news.
Honestly, that's great.
I feel like adult club playersget maybe a little too hung up

(56:56):
on the title issue.
It's a little bit arbitrary tome in terms of like, oh, did I
land at 2,400, 2,300, 2,200?
I mean, I know a title isawesome, I know that that has
like a great ring to it, butalso in terms of how you can
feel about your chess.
Is there really such a hugedifference in how you're going
to feel about yourself as achess player whether you're 2000

(57:17):
or 2100.
?

Can (57:18):
Exactly.

Daniel (57:19):
And so I just feel like 2000 should be enough for 99% of
people.
That should be plenty to knowthat they could reach your
thoughts on that.

Can (57:25):
100%, I mean 2000, is an amazing number itself.
That I'm not sure what I meanpercentile, it puts you right.
I mean it should be hugely highpercent of people playing chess
.
So that itself is a greatnumber to achieve.
Not easy at all for adultbeginners and improvers, right?
So why do we randomly chaseafter titles A hundred percent,
you know why that random numberlike 2,200?

(57:47):
I mean it's just set by humans,you know.
So yeah, what's the point.

Daniel (57:51):
It's a human-made standard, it's not something
intrinsically special.
So, yeah, that's great's greatnews.
Actually, I feel like 2000 isawesome.
Yes, so, john, one other thingI wanted to talk about before we
finish and get to my lastsegment of the interview is that
you've also recently started apodcast, which I guess overlaps

(58:13):
with your youtube channel,because it's on your youtube
channel, but, of course, peoplecan access it elsewhere.
So, yeah, I mean, you're doingall the things, as they say.
So, courses, coaching.

Can (58:23):
I'm jogging many balls, many balls.
Yeah, exactly it's reallyimpressive.

Daniel (58:26):
So yeah, if you would just take a minute to tell us a
little bit about your podcast.

Can (58:31):
Yeah, it's called the Chess Cognition Podcast, which I
thought makes sense given mybackground, you know I had to
give a name to it.
It was born out from my questof connecting with people in the
world, you know, like fromchess punks community, other
coaches, grandmasters, you know.
Because that was a naturalprogression across the years, I
started my YouTube channel in2023.
After one year, I decided toexplore both short but also

(58:53):
longer content, and longercontent obviously should involve
me talking chess with someother great guys in the chess
world.
So it was just borne out fromthis.
I even talked to Nate Solon.
He was just okay, why don't wejust discuss one time, you know,
this podcast, not even podcast,but let's discuss whether Blitz
is good for you.
You know, that was just arandom topic.
Let's discuss one day whetherBlitz is good for you or not.

(59:14):
Okay, then the entire podcastwas kicked off from that
initiative by Nate Solon.
Because, yeah.
Then I thought, since I havethis long content, which I plan
to do maybe on every two weeks,bi-weekly, I can also maybe
create one podcast for that, soit's on Spotify or other places
Also can give me motivation andstructure and discipline to
continue doing that and talkingto people and so far, yeah, I'm

(59:40):
producing almost every two weeksand it's been doing great.
I'm connecting to new people inthe world.
It's amazing, you know like,because, yeah, again, like two
years ago nobody really knewabout me and now I'm even, like
more well-known, but also Iconnect to people through those
podcasts.
So it's kind of a win-win,multi-purpose move.
But obviously I cannot competewith Ben Jenison or with you
guys, because you're definitelyputting all the resources there.
I did it again not to reallyreally maybe grow in the podcast

(01:00:03):
business per se, but reallydiversify my YouTube channel and
talking to people, because Iknow that that involves its own
adult improvement.
You know I can do my best tobecome a better interviewer.
Host.
English skills should improve.
You know, segmenting flow ofthe conversations I mean,
there's a huge art also when itcomes to being a good podcast
host, as you know.
Right, right, yeah, but that'snot my goal you know Still

(01:00:25):
working on it myself, I know,but that's not my main goal.
Still, my main goal is to talk,chess with beautiful people in
the community, sometimes evenscientific community, as I said,
like Christopher Chabris andother guys, I sometimes invite
we scientific community, as Isaid, like christopher, charlie

(01:00:46):
and other guys I sometimesinvite, we also talk about those
links between psychology,cognitive science and expertise
and chess and so on.

Daniel (01:00:49):
Yes, that's fantastic.
Yeah, I mean, you've had greatguests on already and the uh,
the topic of was it is blitzgood for you.
That's a fantastic topic.
You just gave me an idea for afuture episode, so I might I
might borrow, let's unquote.

Can (01:00:58):
Let's do it Exactly.

Daniel (01:01:01):
Okay, yeah, so we've pretty much covered all like the
big questions I wanted to askyou, john, about like from a
typical interview standpoint,and I loved everything you had
to share.
Your journey is amazing andfascinating, and so are your
courses and your YouTube channel.
So yeah, I'm just superimpressed with all that you're
doing in chess.
I mean you've just made a hugesplash in the community.

(01:01:23):
You're helping tons of people.
Yeah, it's just reallyimpressive.

Can (01:01:26):
So humbling to hear your kind words, Really motivating
for me as a coach, you know tohear this feedback.

Daniel (01:01:30):
It's amazingly energizing, yeah my pleasure and
absolutely mean it.
So let's finish our chat withthe last segment that I do with
all of my guests, which is aseries of rapid fun questions.
You've said you've listened tomy show, so maybe you've heard
this before.

Can (01:01:46):
I know I heard this before.

Daniel (01:01:47):
Okay, okay, so now you get to.

Can (01:01:49):
Let's see, I'm ready, I'm ready.
I told about this the whole day.
I was thinking about thosequestions today, daniel, so
let's see.
Awesome, awesome, okay, firstone knights or bishops knights,
because I'm a more strategicplayer, and knights like those,
you know, quite strategicpositions, slow maneuvering to
the outpost.
I think they really make thegame more beautiful and complex,

(01:02:09):
also strategically speaking.
It's, it's beautiful nice,great.

Daniel (01:02:14):
What's your favorite time control longer.

Can (01:02:17):
Longer the better.
You know, Ideally, I'm athinker, I'm a philosopher, so
two hours per player plus, youknow, 40 extra minutes after
move, 40 with 30 secondsincrement if possible.
Even adjournments if possible.
But we don't live in the righttime for that.
Oh nice, Adjournments ifpossible.

Daniel (01:02:32):
I think that's a first.
I haven't heard that on theshow yet.
I like that Going old school.

Can (01:02:35):
I like it.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Daniel (01:02:38):
Favorite.
What's your favorite opening toplay as white?
Catalan, nice.
What's your favorite opening toplay as black?

Can (01:02:51):
Neidorf, on the condition that they don't choose crazy
Bishit G5 variation against me.

Daniel (01:02:55):
This is pure chaos.
In one word, how would youdescribe your playing style?
Strategic?
What's one book you wish morechess players would read Under
the Surface?

Can (01:03:06):
by Jan Marcos.
Okay, why that one?
It's beautifully philosophical,deep, full of beautiful
analogies that touches otheraspects of life and chess,
written by a beautiful author.

Daniel (01:03:19):
great author, really great book who is your favorite
player of all time I thoughtabout this today.

Can (01:03:26):
I think in the end it's vasily smyslov, because of his
pure clean style.
You know, clean, harmony style.
He was a guy of harmony, peace,harmony, coordination.
Beautiful moves, beautifullooking positional moves, you
know plan making and games justan positional moves, you know
plan making and games.
Just an amazing guy to watchfor me as a strategic player.

Daniel (01:03:44):
I love it.
That's a great answer.
Because I'm always intrigued byanswers that are less common.

Can (01:03:49):
The most common is Gary Kasparov, or what?

Daniel (01:03:51):
Yeah, carlson, or Fischer and Kasparov.

Can (01:03:54):
Those are the three.
Those are probably the threemost popular, yeah, so I like
when there's a name that I don'thear much.

Daniel (01:04:00):
If you could play any great player of the past who is
no longer alive, who would it be?

Can (01:04:06):
I think it's Jose Raul Cablo Blanca.
Right, I would like to witnesshis amazing intuitive style.
You know this intuitiveunderstanding and playing
amazingly beautiful strategicchess and games and so on.

Daniel (01:04:17):
Absolutely.
If you could play any of thetop players in the world right
now, who would it be?

Can (01:04:23):
This was not easy for me today.
I thought about it for a moment, for a while, maybe Gukesh, I
would say, because you know, Ithink I like his presence on the
board, you know like very stoic, you know like a Buddhistic,
like very you know.

Daniel (01:04:45):
I think I will enjoy his presence on the board.
You know this thinker,philosopher, kind of a yeah
stance on the chessboard.
I'd like that great answer.
And the final question if achess genie existed and could
grant you any one chess wish,what would you wish for?

Can (01:04:54):
this was also difficult, yes, I mean yeah, great question
to end by.
I think maybe it would be thatit could make me very stoic on
the chessboard so I don't getaffected by what happened in the
past or what will happen in thefuture Because I lost so many
games against, let's say,grandmasters, stronger players
in a better position, right,because then those toss kick in.

(01:05:15):
What if I win against this guy?
My rating will be amazing.
Then comes a blunder, of course, right, or I make a mistake and
that haunts me on thechessboard.
You know that affects mydecisions.
I'm sort of haunted by theinitial mistake and it affects
my later decisions on thechessboard.
So I wish I could be more likea stoic, like Buddhist person on

(01:05:37):
the chessboard, you know, likestaying on the zone at all times
.

Daniel (01:05:40):
That's a great answer.
I have not heard that onebefore, but I think it's a
really thoughtful and deepresponse.
I love that one.
Does that reflect somethingthat you feel you're actively
working on in your own game?

Can (01:05:52):
If I ever go back to OTB, which is not given yet,
definitely I think I will spendmore time on that on that side
of chess for sure it's right,right, yeah.

Daniel (01:06:01):
Well, john, I love your answers to this segment as well,
in addition to all the othersthat I talked about already.
Yeah, I appreciate you.
You know, giving some time tothink about them all and uh,
yeah, because a couple of themare not easy.
Um, yeah, so I loved everythingthat you shared today.
You're a fantastic guest.
I love talking chess with youyou're definitely one of those
people.
That is a challenge to limit ourdiscussion to just one hour,

(01:06:24):
both because of all you'veaccomplished and because I just
love sharing the passion of thegame with someone like you.
So thank you so much for beingon the show.
I'm very honored that you'rehere and I just want to say
thank you again.
The pleasure is mine, daniel.

Can (01:06:35):
It was a beautiful conversation.
Let's do it again at some point.
Yes, either in your podcast ormy podcast.
You know we are here, let's doit both For the long run.

Daniel (01:06:43):
Yeah, let's do both Definitely.

Can (01:06:44):
I would also like to get your experience across the years
.
You talk to so many people inthe chess world.
You know, one day I would liketo host you in my podcast and
you describe your experience inthe chess world.

Daniel (01:06:55):
You know like that will be a great episode too, to
listen to your story.
I'd be honored to do that.
So, yeah, anytime, let me know.
Cool, and yeah, it was greathaving you on John.

Can (01:07:03):
Thank you so much Same here , and see you soon, daniel Thank
you so much Thank you.

Daniel (01:07:10):
Thanks for listening.
This has been a production ofmy business Adult Chess academy,
and that has a website with thesame name.
If you want to look for it, youcan also find me being way too
active on twitter by searchingmy username, lona underscore
chess see you next week.

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