Brought to you by the all new Toyota Corolla. Welcome to you Stuff you should Know from House Stuff Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Murray Head with me as always as Charles W. Chuck Bryant and uh Steffe should know Mary Head. And here's the guy who did One Night in Bangkok. Oh, I know, I just don't get the reference. Oh, it's about Bobby. Sure, it's from the musical Chess. What we talked about this before. I have no idea what you're talking in an episode? Jerry? Did we not? I'm almost positive we did. Jerry doesn't listen. What a yeah? I think I have a faint memory. One Night in Bangkok is from the the musical Chess, which I didn't know existed, right, And it's based loosely on the story of Bobby Fisher. Okay, I do remember that now, and I think I was just as surprised back then. It's but it's the truth. Tell me in another couple of years, and again, what's with Murray Head. That can't be the guy's real name? And why would that be a name you adopted although it's perfect for five I bet that's his name. Murray Head. Well, look into it. What parents name their kid Murray head? Was his last name was head, right, I'm saying yeah, but no doctor and mrs Head. Maybe doctor and doctor head. Maybe so maybe his parents are both doctors, but don't you think that. Probably then if his last name really was Head, it was actually like Hedowski or something like that, Murray Hedowski. I can live with Murray Head. It's terrible that we Chuck's checking his watch, which is the universal sign for me to hurry things along. Now I'm not. And I need to apologize to you because, uh, it's a it's a busy week for me. And I said, hey, let's do one that is, uh, it's not super tough. And I sent you chess. You were like today, You're like, I've never played chess before. I'm not in my life. Yeah, I had no idea. I apologize for some reason. I don't even know how to play checkers. Yeah, And now that I think about it, I don't see you as a chess player until now. I don't know you more as a type of person who would walk in and like drop a bowling ball on the chess board and say, I went, you got me way wrong. You're not like super strategic and tactical. What he's a big stick? Oh, I can be both ways. You you're just talking about your own experience with me. Oh yeah, I've can play chess and I intend to. Are you gonna play? Yeah? After researching to say emailed you, I was like, we have to start playing chess. She said her dad taught her like the basic moves when she was a kid, but she never really got into it. So we're gonna start playing chess. Well I never got into it, got into it, but I did learn when I was probably a young teenager. And uh, my brother and I played for a little while. Who won? I think he always won? But I never ever learned strategy. I was like, I learned how the pieces moved, and then as a dumb little thirteen year old kind of went about my way trying to get the king in checkmate. Right, you sold your Detective Comics number one and stopped playing the piano, And yeah, I started drinking beer. By the way, I looked at Murray Head. I rarely do this. His name is Murray Seafield St. George Head. So his name really is Murray Head. Yeah, why didn't he go by Murray St. George or Seafield St. George. That's awesome. Yeah, it sounds like you should be wearing a cravat anytime you say that. All right, so let's play some chess. Okay. So, um, you were just saying that you stopped playing chess and you really never got strategy. No, but I remember, like I could sit down and play right now, so I probably could too after reading this article eighteen times. Um. But the the thing that I gathered from this article is that had you kept playing, you would have eventually stopped thinking about how you can move your your pieces and started thinking strategically. That that just kind of comes with time and practice. It's the natural result of playing chess. Yea, And I think I remember probably getting a little better. But unless you know, like the bona fide bona fide strategies, uh, I don't know, there's a ceiling to how good you can get, you know. So we're gonna get email about this. It's bona fide as like a descriptor. But if it is your bona fide is like a noun, like your credentials, then that's how it pronounced. Bona fide can be correct. Yeah, bona fide is right. But when you're talking about like my bona fide is like are that I'm great? But um I'm bona fide great? Gotcha? I think that's right that and I thought was I was just mispronouncing as a joke like a normally do. Let's talk chess, alright. Chess for me, one of my favorite things about the game is that it is has pointed out in this article, is the great equalizer and sitting sitting in chess is very cool to me that chess the brainiest nerds in a classroom or a library might play. Or you can walk by Washington Square Park and seeing these old Kajars playing chess that have been like battling it out for years, or the kid from fresh It really played chess speed chess. So it really just is it spans ages and races and social and economic groups. Is it's really kind of cool. It's not like just like like some snooty game, you know. Yeah, I mean everybody can play it and it's old. Yes, it is. The Indians can actually claim or India can claim chess the invention of chess and that those are Indians. I know, if the one for Christopher Columbus. We wouldn't have to make that distinction. That's the second appearance today. Yes, it does. Is rioted in India, believe to have been born in about a d. Three hundred um by the name Kataraga, and it was a four person game. Kataranga was with sixty four squares on the board, but the moves are similar to the modern game, and the chess we all know and love is most closely tied to that original Indian game and not some of these other ones. We actually don't know the rules of Kataraga. It was lost to the ages. But there's a guy, but we do know that it did exist. We I think we have our hands on Katarango boards and it's obviously the predecessor of chess. Um But there's a guy. Read this article called Big Game Hunter from two thousand eight in Time magazine. It's about this guy named Irving Finkel, and that a great name, believing Finkel. Yeah, And he works at the British Museum and he's a game expert and basically his job is too far in old games and to figure out their rules. Man, is cool. Do you know how smart that guy has to be? Dude? So I don't know if he's worked on Kataranga or what, but I guarantee like that's on his like bucket list is to figure out exactly how Kataraga was played. That's pretty awesome. That's a well is it a job or is it? It's a gentle h good I think think so. Kataranga was originated about three in India, and a couple of hundred years later it made its way out to Persia Arang, Yeah, and the Persians um were firmly planted onto the Silk Road, and the Silk Road spread everything, it really did. Um. And one of the things that did spread was chat Trang or chat Trang and Uh it made it into uh Arabia and the Arabians or also referred to as the Moors when they invaded Spain or the Moops depending on whether you like I felt or not, and Uh. From there it's spread all through Europe, yes, and then of course eventually the America's and the rest of the continents. It spread like everything else spread, really it did. So our modern chest that we play today is traced back to rang Uh and that diasporas Chitrang. But of course the Chinese and the Japanese were like, well, just come up with our own bubble based it on chattaranga. Yeah. Like it seems like most cultures had a similar like slight variations UM, including Germany and the Byzantines who played on a circular board. Uh. Germans had three extra pieces that we don't use um in China and Japan, like you mentioned um, which they still play today their own versions. In China, it's called sankai and stended like the guy from NPR. Uh. And the board is a five by nine grid and it's green and two five by nine grids. It's expensive. Yeah, there are two five by nine grids separated by a moat. Well that's the part that I love best, the moat. It would it'd be cool if like you had a really great board that had like water in it and like a mini like sea monster swimming around. That's awesome. Uh. And the goal there instead of a king, you are supposed to topple the general, right, the general is that the top dog. Not a big difference in that place. But uh, the Japanese have one called she Go show ge I got it backwards? Um, and that's the nine by nine grid twenty game pieces, which is four more than chess twenty game pieces for each player. The big differences that they're all the same color. Yeah, you think that's confusing, but apparently they face in a certain direction and that's how you tell what who, what piece belongs to whom. But I guess if you know the game, that's not super confusing. So, like I said, modern chess that we play now is basically closely resembles the Indian original Indian game. Did you say that? Uh? And in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, though, is when the queen basically became the most powerful piece on the board, which is very surprising. It. Yes, the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries the age of misogyny, that's when witches were were created. The idea of women being powerful was a bad thing, like the continuation of just women being held down. They at the same time, in chess, in this universally enjoyed game, the one obviously female piece was given the most power. Yeah, but that was also like some pretty powerful queens at that time, right, it's a good point. I don't know. So there were some difference though between the pieces of course, in the Western game, like they had elephants in the Indian version, whereas we had nights. So just kind of character differences. Uh. And in the nineteen until the mid nineteenth century there were class differences as well, So like, if you're a wealthy person you have these big heavy chess pieces that would like fud and stay in place. If you're poor, you just had like chunks of wood that represented the pieces. And then in the mid nineteenth century, um Jean Jacques of Jacques of London created the design that we see in chess boards today, which is a symbol denoting what piece it is on top of the pedestal. Yeah, and did you know you know the pawn it's like basically like a ball on top of like a base or something like that. It's supposedly supposed to represent the compass and square of the masons. Interesting. Oh and the pedal stores of different heights too. That's important to know. Yes, is all come into play? Who will um what else? Uh? Well? You you know these days you can just play with each other. You can play on a computer. They have computers that play people. I know we all remember when Deep Blue two beat Gary casper Off in the nineties. That was a big deal. Like one of a few times chess makes front page news these days. You know, it's got to be a big deal. It was a huge deal because they've been trying to build computers that could beat humans at chess for decades and they finally did it. And I mean cass Brov was the undisputed champ. He was the the best chess player walking the planet, like everyone agreed, and he got beat by a computer. I bet he was pissed. Oh but he was too. Can't you imagine that if the very at least you have a nightmare that night. All right, So let's if you've never played before, let's talk a little bit about the game itself. It's a two person game, not the four person game like it was originally. Um the end game, the goal is to attack the king, put the king in check, meaning it cannot move without being captured, which would be a checkmate. Yes, if you can get out of check you can keep playing. If there is no possible move the king can make, then you are in checkmate. Game over, which is a really odd little quirk of chess. The king actually is never captured. Yeah, it ends just before his capture witness capture becomes inevitable. Yeah, and captured, meaning like you don't take it off the board and rub it in. I guess it's the one piece that can never leave the board. It's an a legal move. Yeah, and I've seen people knock over the king. I don't know if that's just a legit move or if that's a jerk move, but I've seen it happen. I have two Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm not sure about that. Fresh um they are the board is half white, the pieces are half white, half black. The board is half white and half black or white and dark. I'd like to quote the article if i'm uh. The rules of the game are based on the pieces, half of which are black and half of which are white. True game manufacturers who are in the business of fun create games with non traditional colors and replace typical game pieces with other characters, but for the purpose of this article, we will use the standard colors because we're talking about chess. I thought that was a great c A. Yeah, that's pretty funny. Game makers who are in the business of fun, I've never seen those. I wonder what like other characters. I'm sure like everybody who plays D and D R Star Tecker, you know, what I'm saying. I have their own versions made by game manufacturers, and they're in the business of fun. I do have a Star Wars monopoly, which is pretty fun. Um. So the chess board itself has sixty four squares that alternating color, like we said, across eight different rows. You've got horizontal rows called ranks, which are numbered one through eight. Yes, then you've got the vertical rows called files, rank and file lettered A through ah. So any square has a number letter designation. That's right, And uh, the four squares in the center are really the most important. Those are E four, E five, D four, and D five. Yeah, and they're they're the most important for controlling the game. Correct me if I'm wrong. It doesn't actually explicitly say in the article. But that's because it's the easiest place to block and defend an attack from. So if you control the center, you can move easily throughout anywhere on the rest of the board. Is that why controlling the center is important? I think so, And I think, uh, just in terms, if you were to look at chess is like a military invasion. You don't want to be trapped in the corner or against a wall, you know, what I'm saying, you're probably most dangerous, like in the middle. That's just a guess. Yeah, especially if you've got four guys in the middle with all their backs together and their guns pointed outward, and they'd just be like, you know, this is exactly how I thought this would go. Uh. So each player as sixteen starts with sixteen game pieces. Um, you have either all the black ones, are all the white ones, and those consist of eight ponds, two rooks that look like little castles, two nights that look like little horses, to bishops, which I guess they're they're sort of hard to describe. They have a meter on top, and a meter is the headwear of the maybe episcopalion definitely the Catholic Church from Yeah, the bishop on up. I think cardinals may basically you know, the funky headwear that the pope wears. That's a meter. That's what's on top of the bishops piece. Yeah, and they vary greatly like between manufacturers. I've seen um bishops that marked quite as ornate, you know. Yeah, but the ones that are that were originally manufactured by Jean Jacques, and then I think they're called the Eastman pieces. Um, they have a meter on top. Okay, uh, and then you've got your king and your queen. Uh. I believe the king usually has a well likeness said. It all depends the king's tallest. It is tallest, and that's how you remember what goes where? Um, starting, and the board has to be a certain way as well. Is right? White is right? So like there there should always be the white square on your right corner. When you've got that set up, then you can start putting your pieces up, starting in the first rank, which is the horizontal road closest to you. Um, you want to put your rooks right, the little castle on the far left and the far right inside one. Inside of the rooks are the knights, then the bishops, and then you have two squares left and uh, the queen goes on the square that is the same color as her. That's right. What's the phrase the carpet matches the drapes? Oh my god, no, oh no. The queen's dress must always match your shoes, right, that's right, that's how you remember. Yeah, And then the king goes in the remaining square. That's right. Then in the rank in front of that, you've got your pawns that's right, all lined up on the and the of those eight squares. So, like we said, the goal is to put the king in checkmate. And it helps to think of it, like I said, as a game of war. Almost you want to use all your little soldiers, um, and we'll talk about how they can be moved to capture and remove pieces to eventually make the other king vulnerable while also protecting your own king. Yeah, that's that's a big thing. Like if you overextend yourself in an attack, you leave your king vulnerable. So it's not quite as simple as going on the offensive. Strategic and I think it bears repeating. Against is the point of the whole game when you place when your opponent places your king in a vulnerable situation where the king cannot get out of without being checked or without being checkmated, that's checkmate and the game is over. Yes, and the king uh if if in check must make a move to get out of check meaning either move the king or block or capture the piece that has the king in check. That's the only move you can make at that point. Yeah, so chuck in a second, let's talk about them, the individual pieces themselves, but first, let's do a message break real quick. Okay, so you want to look a little closer at an at the individual pieces. Yes, and this is something I did not know. Each piece is assigned a point value, but you don't keep score, No, basically just how much power it has. Yeah, and it's basically for you when you're thinking strategically, you can very quickly say, well, this move would cost me this many points because I could lose this east. So it's a good way of just using shorthand for figuring out the value of a particular strategic move. Yeah, and once you know it, you don't even think of the points. You're like you just innately kind of know, like this is a queen is the most valuable. Yeah, I think it comes in most handy for programming computers that play test to um. But let's start with the rook, which it comes from the Persian word rock are u k h which means chariot, which is what the rook, which is now a castle, originally was. And they think the castle is actually a siege tower. Yeah, it looks like a little uh it's called turret. Yeah, that's true. It is that, right, I believe. So, yeah, it's a turret. Okay, um, but yes, so the rook is the castle. That's right. It's worth of five points um. And it can move along the ranks and files only in a straight line, but it can move as far as you want. If you have an open path from one end of the board to the other, you can slide that sucker all the way across. Uh. And if you do that, something happens, which we'll talk about in a minute. That's write something magical. Um, you can't jump over any pieces, and it says that for each piece. Let's just go ahead and say you can never jump over a piece. No it's not checkers. No, it's not the only one that can kind of jump over a pieces a night which we'll see. But that one doesn't even actually jump. It makes a normal standard move. Well we're there, go ahead and say it. Okay, Well the Night makes an L move that the Night is capable of moving um forward two spaces and then to the left or the right one space. So it makes a little hook or crowbar or L movement with each move. Or it can move over to and up one. Yeah, that's what I said. Right, Well, you said forward to and over one. It can also be to the left to Okay, so it's it's always a combination of two, two and one. It basically can make a turn, which is the only piece that can make a turn. And if you look at a chessboard and and see where your night ends up, it looks like it it leapt over a piece, but ultimately it's just making a left or right, yeah, that's true, or an up or down. Um, and that makes the night pretty pretty unique as far as strategy goes. Yeah, the nights always screw me. Oh yeah, yeah, they just they always would sneak up on me and I would kind of forget that they could, you know, move crazy turnover Creig Cray uh. And another good thing to remember. First of all, it's a three point piece, but um, if it starts on a light square, it's gonna end up on a dark square and vice versa. This I think it's just so basic that the article just didn't even think it was important to mention. But I want to make sure I have this right. You want to get to a square where your opponent's pieces, and when you move to that square, you take them out of play there off the board, right, Yes, essentially, when you can Uh. You when you can land on another opponent's space where there is a piece, you just knock it out and there auto play. They can't come back in, can't come backain. And what you've just done by doing that is weakening the defenses against your opposing king. Exactly. Um onto the bishop topped with a meter. Like you said, it's also worth a three spot. It goes diagonally. Um cannot go left and right. It can only attack diagonally right. But it's so it makes an X across the board. Yeah. But like the rook, you can go and however far you can go with it. But when you move it, you have to go or else you lose a turn. That's right. Then you've got your queen. It's worth nine points. She's a little shorter, but man, the Queen is a tough broad because she can go in any direction however far. She wants to all eight directions on the board, basically no restrictions as long as it's in in a straight line. She can't turn right, she's so that makes her um the most strategically valuable piece. Yeah, and the Queen's man, they'll sneak up on you too, because she can be all the way across the board and you'll make a move and not even like realize that you just put like a night in the path, you know, ten spaces away until the jerk across from you captures your night and you're like, oh man, I cannot wait to play hate that lady. I am so excited about playing thanks to this article. It's really fun. I'm gonna start playing again. I think I just need to. I don't know who and we could always play here. I guess I'll bring my bowling ball. I bet that Ben Bowling plays chess. Oh, I'm sure he probably speaks Chinese while he plays chess. He probably like shook his head when he heard you pronounce the Chinese version of He probably plays that. Sure, Um, just as a bunny. He dressed up in my gremlin outfit today. I was walking around there today again. How did he do it already? Yeah? I thought you like tweeted a picture Facebook the picture of him wearing the gremlin outfit. I mean that happened today, It happened like weeks before too. Wouldn't mean, Um, Ben Bowling, you should support his awesome show. Two of them stuff they don't want you to know and car stuff one of our colleagues. Um. So finally, onto the king. Uh. The King can also move in any direction, but just one at a time, um, which is good for getting out of the way. But the King is generally not like much of an attacker. He's kind of a milktoast really like the queen wears the pants in this relationship, she's she's the bad dude. Uh. And like we said, if the king is threatened and in check, he has to move to save himself. Yeah. And if he goes, well, if I move here, I'm screweding. If I move here, I'm screwing it. There's wait, there's nowhere for me to move to get out of being attacked. That's checkmate, baby. That's when the guy across from me is very smug and just sitting there waiting for you to realize it. Yeah. Or actually, traditionally you would call out of here and checkmate, yes you know, checkmate? Uh? Or actually I would say check and mate. I don't understand, and it's probably super obnoxious and wrong. And then you have your little ponds, the eight little guys up front, the foot soldiers. They're basically cannon fodder pretty much. But ponds. Some say there in lies the key. If you play your ponds right, then you're in good shape. Did you know? Ponds? Originally in the I think twelve thirteenth century, just to make a more interesting each pond, depending on its place on the rank, um had a name, like there was the Gambler. Yeah, there was the doctor, the the Coward of the county. Probably were they all Kenny Rogers songs? Yeah, exactly? Um what else was there? There are a couple others that were pretty interesting, but um, apparently it didn't stick. The innkeeper the islands in the stream, right, so the ponds can they're only worth one point? Um? They are defenders. Basically, they only move one square at a time. I can't go backwards, that can only go forwards, and they can only attack diagonally right, So you can't I can't just move upon. Like let's say you're upon and I'm upon. I can't just come at you from straight ahead and knock you out. We're basically just kind of staring at each other. But if I was to the left or right in front of you, I could go diagonally and get get ahold of you. That makes sense, yes, okay, it does I'm trying to visually, it's just as hard to visualize. Yeah, and it's it's the kind of game that sounds complicated, but once you play at once, you're like, okay, this isn't so hard. So then the pawn can move um, five directions left or right forward and then diagonally forward or to the left or diagonally forward to the right right. No, no, no, it cannot move left or right. Okay, So it can only move forward diagonally to the left or diagonally to the right. Correct three directions. And when you start the game, it's the only time you can move your pond two spaces, So you can move out upon two spaces on the front row only um. After that, it can only move one space at a time. Gotcha? All right, okay, so um, let's talk about some rules like we haven't been already. Yeah, the timer thing is, I never realized what the timer was all about. I can't imagine how stressful that is. Yeah, I thought the timer. I thought you had like each player has like sixty seconds to complete a move or something That is not true. No, Like those clocks with the two faces and the buttons on top of each face Um, they keep a predetermined amount of time a total time, so say like an hour, so you have an hour for this game, each have an hour, or okay, so you each have an hour, so there's two hours for the whole game. You divided the two hours into one hour for each and then when it's your turn, Um, your clock is running, and when you're done with your move, you hit the button on top of your side and it stops your clock and starts your opponent's clock. So now they're eating away from that two hours. And then if your opponent's time runs out, then you win just based on that. Yeah, which is way cooler than I thought, which was like you each have like two minutes to complete a move. In this way, towards the end of the game, you might have ten minutes left on your clock and your opponent might have thirty minutes because you took way too much time at the beginning, and then you're forced into playing like way faster towards the end. Right, pretty cool, So in my my the impression I have is that this is something that you take up once you've mastered chess, So well, that's kind of boring playing normally. You have never played with it because I imagine it changes everything. Alright, so let's play. Let's play with these rules here. Why it always goes first, It always goes first. Um, you cannot skip a turn. Nope, And therefore no player can move twice in a row. Yeah, you can't, like say I passed, you gotta move. Yeah, you can take back a move, but only under a very specific circumstance. We said that capturing the king is an illegal move. Ye, So if you move your king into a place where he will inevitably be captured, you moved him into check, that's an illegal move, and the opponent's supposed to tell you, and then you can take that move back. That's the only move you can take back. So I think the rule of thumb is once you take your hand off of your piece. I comed, but that's how I always played. Yeah, it seems legitimate. And also, now that I have not played it and I'm a little older, I bet you that, uh, it's better to try and do this stuff in your head than move your pieces all around with your finger on it, because I would imagine that would sort of tip off your strategy somewhat. Um, I bet, like real real pros do this in their head. They don't be like, go, hmm right, no, my finger is still on it. And then I think they played with the clock to don't they probably? Yeah? Uh? And do you want to say part part of strategy, you want to be thinking at least three moves ahead anyway. Yeah, I imagine that's very tough. Good luck with that beginner. Well, what else you said that you can't move upon more than one squared a time except for to start. Yeah, it's each pond's first move can either be one or two. It's not necessarily like at the beginning of the game. Um, oh, I like this one. You know the words stalemate, Yeah, stalemate is a chess term. It happens when, uh, if the king isn't under attack, but any direction that you move him in would place him in check so that there there's no checkmate going or coming. It's just you just happened to end up making a terrible move. That's a stalemate. No one wins. Sorry, everybody goes home a loser. That's no fun. All right, here's some other rules which I did not know about. I have never played with these rules, and they were really confusing to me. Yeah, I had to do some supplemental research. Yeah, like YouTube videos and stuff where Englishmen explained exactly what castling is. I think I have a decent hand on it. But go ahead, well castling in this article it says that it has to be done at the beginning of the game. I didn't see that anywhere else. I think it can only be done once a game. Well, here's the deal I got to the bottom of this. It can be done as long as the king and the rook that you're going to use to castle with has not moved yet, right, So, as long as they are still in their original positions, you can castle. Yeah, but that doesn't necessarily have to happen at the beginning of the game. Um, but you can move your king two pieces and then move the rook that hasn't moved. That's your your castle right um, to the last space the king past. So that means basically what you're doing is you're moving your king over and you're moving your rook next to it so that your rook can protect your king more more better better. Yeah, and you can only do this if they're nothing in between the two. Um, and you can do it on either side. You can do a on the king's side or the queen's side, and it's the only move where you can move two pieces at once and you don't have to but it strategically, it's a very smart move to castle anytime you can. Yeah, I still don't fully get it or or the benefits. I know it's a defensive move. I don't understand why you have to move the king. Why not just move the rook next to the king like that seems like that would be the same thing. Yeah. I think someone will be able to explain this in a dummies fashion via email and then we're going to get a good one. But I think that is what it amounts to. It's a defensive move to make the rook put it in a better position to protect the king. Um, there's pawn promotion. Never heard of that. So there is pawn promotion where you said, like, if the pawn just makes it all the way across the board, your opposing rank either the first rank or the eighth rank, depending on where your opponent is, you could promote your pawn. I never heard of this. Most people choose to promote their pond to queen, but in certain instances I have no idea what they are, but I just saw that in certain and instance is it's better it might be better to promote it to something else other than queen, and that would be a different type of promotion. It's um like not a full proo promotion. I can't have I can't remember what the name of it is. But yeah, so typically you'd want to promote it to the queen because that's the best piece. And then you have two queens on the board. Yeah you have if you still have your queen that is. Yeah. And I I don't know, I've never heard of these, so I don't know if they're just seldom used or if it's just really rare that upon actually makes it to the other side, because that would seem pretty rare to me. I think they're fairly well used um or frequently used sell rules. Okay, I know this last one is not for fact, it's not a frequently used rule. It's really obscure, so much so that the term m poissance is used in other sports to describe little known obscure rules. So it's become kind of a just a catch all term. Just has really had a huge cultural impact on the world, like an all sense of strange ways huh, yeah, just stalemate. So on poissant means in passing. It's pretty tricky. It allows a pond to capture an opponent's pawn by doing nothing, though without landing on the square. No, So, from what I understand this, this article is a little wrong. Basically it allows it allows you to capture a pond as if the pond had only moved one square, and it can only be played after a two square advance. Confusing, Right, So if a pawn moves two squares and happens to pass an opposing pawn, yes, then the pond that moved two squares to made the move is out. Yeah. It's almost like it can attack from the side, I think, but it's ultimately is attacking itself. The pond that's just sitting there captures that pawn that made the move. Yes, so you basically just made a bone head move because you just lost your pawn. Yeah. It can only be done too, if the pond comes from home base and moves two squares, which can only happen once a game, Right, I think, man can't can't we didn't We just say a pawn can only move two squares in one like at the beginning of a game each pond. Yeah, yeah, so that could Yeah, that's that is obscure. Yeah, I've never heard of it, and I don't. I think I found that not many people use it. Nice, So those are the rules, and yeah, um let's talk strategy, man, Uh yeah, protect your king, capture the opponent's pieces, and attack the king, attack him like you hate him. That's not really strategy. I mean, that's just the basic like what you're trying to do. There are like real strategies that people have worked out with names. Yeah, they have like names kings, gambit connected, the shuffle, the fork attack, or the geto in Italian makes a kiss sound. Yeah see and then a vowel makes a sound. Yeah. I don't and I don't know much about these strategies, but um, I know if you want to get better at jess than you would do yourself a favor by trying to learn one or two instead of just being like, well, this guy goes this way and I don't like horses, so I'm gonna attack the night, which is how I play strategy. But what are some other basic strategies? Like let's say you're a beginner, like you, Okay, what should you try to do, I would be well served to not rush. Um. I want to consider what your next move would be after I made my move. But I want to do all this with my arms folded across my chest in my head, very quietly, so as not to give away my strategy. Um, I want to castle whenever possible, castle the king with the rook. Yeah, so that must be like a real light common thing. Yeah, I need. I feel like I missed out. You didn't castle. That's how your brother beat. You had no idea. I'll betty castle and you were like what did you just do? And he's like never mind. Uh. Like we said, the center of the board is where you would like to control things. Um, you want to use all your pieces? Yeah, move them around smartly though. Yeah. Those ponds, like we said, are important. You gotta you gotta bring them out so you can start attacking. Don't like it's not a good strategy. Just be like, all right, I'm just gonna surround my king with ponds and just leave them all there, right, Like you want to get that clean out And like we said, you can't jump, so you gotta move stuff out of the way so everything can get out there. And start warring exactly. Uh, like I said, you want to plan three moves ahead. Um. And and as you were saying, like, you want to get your stuff out on the board, but you want to do it strategically. You want to um, set yourself up, take your time, don't attack too quickly because again that leaves your king overexposed. UM. And you you never want to sacrifice a piece of higher value for lesser value. Yeah, that's the big one. I think that's the one. Even I think I remember trying to employ not successfully, but uh yeah, no, you don't wanna um. You don't want to lose a rook to a pawn. You're just a sucker. And then probably the most important strategy is to have fun and not get discouraged, which I think I think that probably makes a lot of sense. Like I don't think chess is something you just come out and play well the first time. No one in the history of the world since has ever played chess or shadow Anger or anything. If you're a beginner, I think you should just concentrate your first few games on getting the moves correct and then you can start working about everything else. But I mean, if you want to get better very quickly. In addition to playing, there's all sorts of websites, books, people you can talk to, UM, and there's a lot of info out there to learn how to play chess. Yeah, and now that I'm thinking about it, I don't know that I've I've ever won a single game of chess. I always play people better than me. I think my record is like oh and sixty three and I quit playing. Yeah, I can see that, but I mean, you know, maybe play a little kid if you're not that great. A kid who sucks at chess. I was about to say, that's even more right now, a kid that sucks at chess. Just don't gloat too much because it's a kid. No, I'd glowed. So that's everything there is to know about chess. Do you got anything else? I got nothing else? Um. If you want to learn more about chess and see a pretty nifty little flash animation, UM, you can type in C H E. S. S into search bart how stiff works dot com and it will bring up this article. And since I said search bar, it means it's time for listener mail. And I'm gonna call this Maori love. And like we said, the Kiwi's Love a little light shining on them, and so we have heard back from them in spades. Yeah. Have you ever seen Bad Taste? Oh no, I don't think so, because Peter Jackson's first movie. Yeah, I never saw that one. I saw the other one he did, Um Dead Alive I saw that one too. Yeah, I didn't see Bad Taste. I like Bad Taste Boy the Hobbit. I liked that Alive though, two in in the just the schlockiest way you can like something. Sure. Yeah, I didn't see The Hobbit, but this next Hobbit sequel in the never ending parade of Hobbit movies, actually looks kind of interesting. Yeah. I didn't see all of The Hobbit. I watched some of it the other night and I just couldn't do it. Have you ever heard of Rob Delaney, the Twitter guy? He had this tweet he was like, um, it was in all caps. He goes, I'm in the Hobbit right now. It's eight and a half hours long. They won't let anybody leave, please send, and then like it just runts down and heavenly creatures. Did you ever see that? No, man, that was really good. That was the first time I had seen Kate Winslet in a movie, really good movie. Al Right, enough about Peter Jackson, onto the Maori. I thought you guys, thought it'd send you a quick email that sincerely congratulate you and how you handled the Maori podcast production. Pronunciation of Maori words and phrases uses a style of linguistic that is totally different to most languages. See I don't feel so bad now like the pronounced yeah. Well, we're getting to that. As a twenty year old kily I often mispronounced Maori words myself, and due to the nature of trying to put a largely oral language into words, spelling and pronunciation often changed through the years. Still, why would you choose W for F sound? I thought I'd give you some Maori words and easy up their pronunciation for you guys. So that white white tangy, he said, The treaty um is pronounced why tangy? What's is the W sound? Is a W sound in that one? Yeah, that's what he says. He said this as though you're questioning someone's recipe for salsa. That's awesome. Uh. People in New Zealand know about salsa. That's weird. Um uh a r t Aura or Land of the Long White Cloud is pronounced alta roa al ta roa Okay, and that's that was that's New Zealand. It's the Maori word for New Zealand, right, I think so words that begin with the w h prefects you were talking about are almost always pronounced as an F sound, So waka papa sounds more like papa, which sounds weird to us and even dirty. But it's not that sounds pronounced but that's how the Maori pronounced the word that we butchered all over our episode, basically, yeah, exactly. Or the town of wanga Nui is pronounced funga nui. Yeah, it's so weird and hard to get used too. But one of my favorite guys is a small town of but hold hold on, it is weird. It's weird to us, and like the the fuka papa word sounds hilarious, especially if you're in sixth grade or whatever. Exactly, But I mean this is again, that's how it's pronounced in Maori, and therefore, if you're saying a Maori word, you can't really just change the pronunciation because based on your own west. So here's this final one is the small town of Wakika, come out. Kyle is pronounced way kick a muko if you know the correct pronunciation the second time. Why did you what? Well? I mean I was just reading it as if I was oh, which I am, like basically during our Maori episode. Again, I'm really surprised that we got a lot of praise for this one. Yeah. I think that they're delighted that we talked about them and probably got a good laugh because no one can pronounce these words. Yeah, somebody wrote in and said they faced palm like times. Yeah, but they probably laughed about it on the whole though. Guys that wouldn't worry about offending Kiwi's too much. We're a small nation and we're usually just happy if we find out people in other countries. No, we exists as a separate entity. Plus in Australia they produced Play of the Concords, which is a pretty big that's a big production. Thanks again, that's from Tom. Thanks Tom. How would you say Tom and Kiwi? No, it's actually TLM, not the weird t h o M. Yeah, like Tom York. Yeah, that's he dealing with Yorky. Yeah, that's what I call him. Uh, he's good though he's great. Um, well, thank you very much, Tom. We appreciate that, and thank you to everybody who wrote in to say way to go on, Maori, we were blown away. I'm glad to hear from you guys down there. Um, we're up there, depending on what direction you're traveling. UM, if you want to let us know that we did so so or really great or not that great on any episode, or if you have any great explanations on anything about chess, any tips, any tricks, any strategy, we'd love to share it with everybody. Basic strategies, right, we'll get too weird with the King scambit. Yes, well, um, but I'll bet that's like a totally basic strategy. Um. You can tweet to us at s Y s K podcast. You can join us on Facebook dot com, slash Stuff you Should Know. You can send us an email to Stuff Podcast at Discovery dot com and all as always, you can join us at our home on the web, Stuff you Should Know dot com for more on this and thousands of other topics. Is it how Stuff Works dot Com. Brought to you by the all new Toyota Corolla