Cassidy Noble Podcasts

Chess has historically been commented on as black and white, that extends beyond the board too. There are female and ‘open’ tournaments (which are traditionally male), ‘open’ and female titles, and if they are integrated in the same tournament, there are sometimes ‘open’ and female prizes. This freedom of expression has been challenged by FIDE in A…

Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa, sometimes nicknamed as Pragg, is a young Indian chess player who has made waves in the international chess scene with his impressive performances. Born on August 10, 2005, in Chennai (Chin-eye), India, he began playing chess at the age of three. Praggnanandhaa's talent was immediately apparent, and he quickly rose through…

Hello and welcome back for another episode! This month, we will be looking at King and Pawn puzzles! In today’s episode, I will be providing you with the locations of the different pieces on the board. It is your job to figure out the solution by pausing the podcast before moving on. Today, we will be looking at 3 puzzles each around a different en…

Robert James Fischer, also known as Bobby Fischer, was an American chess player who is widely considered one of the greatest chess players of all time. Born in Chicago on March 9, 1943, he learned how to play chess at the age of six, and quickly demonstrated exceptional talent for the game. Fischer began playing in competitive chess tournaments at …

During the 2020 Pandemic, chess caught fire due to the access of streaming and the Netflix show - Queen’s Gambit. In the show, we saw the main character, Beth Harmon, go from discovering the game to taking down the World Champion in one game. While the show takes a couple liberties to dramatize the chess scene - it is still one of the best chess pi…

With a birthday tomorrow, this week we will be focusing on Alexandra Botez, the Canadian- American chess player and content creator who has made a significant impact on the online chess community. She was born on September 24, 1995, in Dallas, Texas to Romanian immigrant parents, then grew up in Vancouver, Canada. Botez started playing chess at the…

Born to a family of economists in 1996, Hungarian native Richard Rapport got into chess when his father was concerned about his lack of concentration in primary school. Shortly after an introduction to the game, Richard was hooked so much that his father became concerned that he was concentrating too much on chess. Rather than pulling him away, his…

José Raúl Capablanca was a Cuban chess player widely regarded as one of the greatest players of all time. Capablanca is best known for his exceptional endgame skills and his ability to simplify complex positions into winning endgames. Capablanca’s chess career began at a young age. He learned to play chess at the age of four by watching his father.…

Simon Kim Williams, also known as GingerGM, is a British Grandmaster who has made significant contributions to the chess world as a player, commentator, and author. He is known for his innovative and aggressive playing style, and his books and videos often focus on unorthodox opening ideas and attacking strategies. Born in 1979, Williams started pl…

Nazi Paikidze is a Georgian-American chess player who was born on January 27, 1994, in Tbilisi, Georgia. Paikidze's career as a chess player began at 4 and started working with her first coach at 6, quickly establishing herself as one of the most promising young players in Georgia. Chess was a part of the curriculum and she has said it was her favo…

Anatoly Karpov is a Russian grandmaster and former world champion who dominated the game in the 1970s and 1980s. He was born on May 23, 1951, in Zlatoust, Russia, and began playing chess at 4, earning his Candidate Master title at 11. At 12, he was admitted into Mikhail Botvinnik’s chess school. Botvinnik remarked - “The boy does not have a clue ab…

Garry Kasparov is widely regarded as one of the greatest chess players of all time. Born in Baku, Azerbaijan, in 1963, Kasparov began playing chess at a young age and quickly rose as a prodigy. In 1978, he participated in the Sokolsky Memorial and took home first place to become a master (at the age of 16). Later that year, he qualified for and won…

The Blindfold King, Grandmaster Timur Gareyev is the current Guiness World Record holder for the most simultaneous blindfolded chess games played at the same time. Originally from Uzbekistan, he won the U14 Asian Championship at the age of 12. He became a Grandmaster at the age of 15. His major claim to fame is becoming the Blindfold King. In Decem…

Recognized as the first official World Champion, Wilhelm Steinitz, owned the title from 1886-1894. Born in 1836 as the last of 13 sons, he began playing chess at 12 and started studying it in his 20's At the end of the 1850's he became very dominant being nicknamed 'The Austrian Morphy' (after the American, Paul Morphy). After a successful match ag…

A pioneer in Computer Chess and Chess Coach, Mikhail Botvinnik had an incredibly strong impact on Russian and global chess. He was the first world class player to develop in the USSR and he was the driving organizational force for chess after WWII creating the 'Russian School of Chess' teaching students like Karpov, Kasparov, and Kramnik. Not only …

It is my birthday today! As a present to myself I wanted to look at my favorite chess player - Mikhail Tal. Known for his creativity and attacking play - The Magician of Riga was the 8th World Champion from 1960-1961. He is also known for his improvisation and unpredictability, sometimes that would backfire, but other times it led to brilliancies s…

The Mozart of Chess, the highest rated human player in history (2882), the 5-time World Champion, and the second longest reign of holding the FIDE number 1 title which has been uninterupted since July 2011. Magnus Carlsen is in a league of his own in the chess world. At the time of recording this, he is currently 50 rating points ahead of World Num…

With the World Chess Championship currently underway, today we are looking at the second Challenger - Ding Liren. The highest rated Chinese player in history, the #2 player in the world for over a year and having the longest undefeated streak in top-level classical chess history from August 2017-November 2018, ... until Magnus beat that streak in 2…

Looking for a second chance at the World Championship after faltering in 2021, the current World Number 3, Ian Nepomniachtchi, will be taking on a different opponent, hopefully with a better outcome for him. How did he get to the near pinnacle of the chess world? He started at the age of 4 in Russia. At the age of 5, he moved with his coach FM Vale…

Outside of his snarky and sarcastic Twitter page, GM Anish Giri is a phenomenal chess player. Born in Russia in 1994, he began playing at the age of 6. In 2002, his family moved to Japan, then in 2008 they moved to the Netherlands. A chess prodigy - he became a Grandmaster at the age of 14 years, 7 months, and 2 days in 2009, but he did not stop th…

Ten episodes ago, we looked at puzzles. This week, we will be trying a couple more. These puzzles are not necessarily ordered in terms of difficulty, but each provide key endgame elements that occur in games. With enough practice, you will be able to visualize the solution without needing to think to solve them, you can simply look at the board and…

Bonus I realized I had too much content for Morphy to cram into one episode. Today, we are going to look at another odds game against his long time sparing partner - Charles Maurian. Morphy and Maurian played well over 75 recorded games that we know of. The previous game, we looked at Morphy starting down just a rook. But - a rook is just not enoug…

IM Levy Rozman (GothamChess) is a chess content creator on Youtube and Twitch. His name, 'GothamChess' comes from where he grew up in New York City. He has earned over 1 million subscribers on Youtube and his videos have received almost 500 million total views since he started in 2018. Starting chess when he was 6, he played his first tournament at…

Considered to be an Unofficial World Champion of his time, Paul Morphy was one of America's greatest flash-in-the-pan chess players. Nicknamed "The Pride and Sorrow of Chess", Morphy learned chess by watching his father. By age 9, he was one of the best players in New Orleans. At the age of 12, he beat the Hungarian Master Johann Lowenthal (one of …

The current icon of Ben Finegold is one of snark and sarcasm -- ... which he has always had. He learned about the game when he was 5, getting his first rating at 6. By the time he was 12, he was offering/ hustling in New York at 8:1 odds in bullet games. Ben graduated high school at the age of 16 and in 1993 he earned the US Chess Trust Samford Fel…

15. Irina Krush v Damon Macleod (2009) Excuse me for the easy joke - but Irina Krush - does crush. The 8 time US Women's Champion and (currently) the only woman to earn a Grandmaster Title while playing for the United States, Irina is in a league of her own. Born in Odessa, USSR (Ukraine today), she learned to play chess and migrated to Brooklyn wh…

Chess has been around for centuries, varaitions date back to the 6th century from India with a game called chaturanga. From there, it moved to Persia, then through the Muslim world, into Spain, then taking over Europe. Throughout its history there have been several iterations - Elephants morphed into Bishops, Chariots into Rooks, Foot soldiers into…

The 4 time Women's World Chess Champion and the 2nd highest rated female player of all time, Hou Yifan started playing at the age of 5 with the help of her chess mentor IM Tong Yuanming. At 13 became the Chinese Women's Champion. She earned the Grandmaster title at 14yrs 6mo 2 days (one of 39 women in the world to ever do so). At 16 she became the …

"The Silent Assassin", Vasily Smyslov was a Soviet chess legend. Born in 1921, he first learned about chess when he was 6 and remained very active in the elite levels of chess well into his 60's winning the first World Senior Championship in 1991. During such a long chess career, Smyslov was always at the highest levels of chess. He was excused fro…

This week we are looking at IM Eric Rosen, the popular Youtuber and Twitch streamer famous for his "Oh no my Queen" traps. Growing up, he started playing when he was 7 and won the 3rd grade state championship at the age of 9. When he was in high school he won the 2011 US K-12 Championship with a perfect 7-0. That clear of a victory was so unprecede…

This week, we are looking at a couple of puzzles! Easy White King on b7 Black King on e3 White Rook on a4 White Rook on h8 Medium White king on a2 Black king on c1 White pawns on f5, g5, h5 Black pawns on f7, g7, h7 Hard Reti's Position White king on h8 White pawn on c6 Black king on a6 Black pawn on h5 GM Wesley So solving Blindfolded studies - ht…

This week, we are looking at GM Susan Polgar, the oldest of the Polgar sisters. Outside of her controversial upbringing, she achieved a plethora of achievements - Perfect score in the U11. Winning the U16 at the age of 12. Highest rated female in the world at age 15. World Champion in 1996. And now working on the SPICE training camp at Webster Univ…

This week, we are looking at a game from GM Hikaru Nakamura. The internet's most popular chess streamer. I could not list all of his accolades due to a character limit, but some of his highlights - 5x - US Champion 2x - Candidate for the World Championship World's Wealthiest Chess Player 1.5 million Twitch followers 1.3 million Youtube subscribers …

This week we are looking at Max Lange - the founder of the West German Chess Federation and the 2nd president of the German Chess Federation. Estimated to be one of the top players of the 1860's, Lange was the a 4 time winner of the West German Championship and has an opening named after him (The Max Lange Attack - 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Nf6 4.d4 …

This week, we are looking at another short game from Pillsbury - this time a blindfold game of his. This game is quite the example of quickly a blindfold game can unravel if you lose the position. Not much is known about Zangger as this is the only game in the database for him. I like this game because it also demonstrates that you can be a legenda…

Alireza Firouzja is a chess prodigy. At age 19, he is the youngest competitor in the 2022 Candidates tournament to play against the World Champion. He was the youngest player to break the 2800 rating barrier, is currently ranked number 3 in the world, was as high as number 2 in the world, and Magnus Carlsen has stated that he only wants to play the…

Today, we are looking at Rubinstein's Immortal - a beautiful game involving sacrifices that left his opponent spellbound. A top of the world player who was scheduled to take on Lasker for the World Championship in 1914, but was put on hold due to WWI. Later in his life, he developed a fear of humans and schizophrenia. 1. d4 d5 2. Nf3 e6 3. e3 c5 4.…

Today, we are looking at a game involving Harry Pillsbury. Pillsbury was a very strong American player, a strong blindfold player and the winner of the Hastings Tournament of 1895. Unfortunately, illness then death at the age of 33 prevented him from competing for the World Championship. 1.f4 e6 2.Nf3 b6 3.e3 Be7 4.Be2 Nf6 5.b3 O-O 6.O-O Bb7 7.Bb2 …

Today, we are looking at a game between Viktor Korchnoi and Anatoly Karpov from 1974 in their Candidates Final (game 21). This was won by Korchnoi in 19 moves. Korchnoi is argued to be one of the strongest players in the world that never won the World Championship title. 1.d4 Nf6 2.Nf3 e6 3.g3 b6 4.Bg2 Bb7 5.c4 Be7 6.Nc3 O-O 7.Qc2 c5 8.d5 exd5 9.Ng…

This week, we are looking at the longest reigning women's world number 1 player - Vera Menchik. Vera Menchik v George Thomas (1932) 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 Bg7 4.e4 d6 5.f3 O-O 6.Be3 e5 7.Nge2 b6 8.Qd2 Nc6 9.d5 Ne7 10.g4 Nd7 11.Rg1 a5 12.O-O-O Nc5 13.Ng3 Bd7 14.h4 a4 15.h5 Qb8 16.Bh6 Qa7 17.Bxg7 Kxg7 18.Nf5+ Nxf5 19.gxf5 a3 20.f6+ Kh8 21.Qh6 axb2+ 2…