July 29, 2020

The Magic of Chess, The Art of Trash-Talking, Must-Read Biographies, and More | Maurice Ashley on The Tim Ferriss Podcast

Check out The Tim Ferriss Show Episode Page & Show Notes

Key Takeaways

• Chess is a lot like any other sport: You watch films of how other players play, identify their strengths and weaknesses, and try to develop strategies to beat them.
  • “You have to really dig deep into the psychology of the player through the information you’re getting from their games, that’s a huge part of our preparation” – Maurice Ashley
• Practicing aikido helped Maurice with his chess game 
  • “It was life-changing, it totally took my game to another level” – Maurice Ashley
    • “When I was able to physicalize that and get it into my body and internalize it and then transfer that into mental mapping onto the chessboard, my game went to a completely different level and that’s what took me to becoming a grandmaster” 
• Chess has been around for 1,500 years and is still loved by millions of people today
  • “The game holds an eternal fascination for the human mind” – Maurice Ashley
• COVID really exposed the inequities between students: Some kids have poor WIFI and need to share one laptop with their siblings which makes it much more difficult for them to learn
  • “Potentially for the next year and a half, these kids are going to fall behind even further, it’s heartbreaking” – Maurice Ashley

Intro

• Maurice Ashley (@MauriceAshley) made history in 1999 when he became the first African-American chess Grandmaster. He is a three-time national championship coach, author of Chess for Success: Using an Old Game to Build New Strengths in Children and Teens, ESPN commentator, iPhone app designer, puzzle inventor, and motivational speaker. 
• Host: Tim Ferriss (@tferriss)

Books Mentioned

• Chess for Success: Using an Old Game to Build New Strengths in Children and Teens by Maurice Gordon Ashley
  • Maurice read this book as a kid and was surprised to find that chess was a game of strategy
• Practicing aikido helped Maurice with his chess game 
  • He recommends reading Aikido and the Dynamic Sphere: An Illustrated Introduction by Adele Westbrook and Oscar Ratti to learn more 
• To learn more about chess, Maurice recommends reading:
  • Play Winning Chess by Yasser Seirawan
  • Winning Chess Openings by Yasser Seirawan
  • Winning Chess Strategies by Yasser Seirawan
  • Winning Chess Tactics by Yasser Seirawan
  • Winning Chess Combinations by Yasser Seirawan
  • Winning Chess Brilliancies by Yasser Seirawan
• If you want to learn about the path to becoming a champion, Maurice highly recommends reading biography books such as:
  • I Never Had It Made: An Autobiography of Jackie Robinson by Jackie Robinson and Alfred Duckett
  • My Bondage and My Freedom by Frederick Douglass
  • Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom by David W. Blight
• The book, Passages: Predictable Crises of Adult Life by Gail Sheehy, taught Maurice about the different stages of life and the predictable problems that come up throughout it
• The book, Mastery: The Keys to Success and Long-Term Fulfillment by George Leonard, taught Maurice about the path to becoming a master and how to deal with plateaus
• The book, The Half-Life of Facts: Why Everything We Know Has an Expiration Date by Samuel Arbesman, talks about how facts change overtime because we learn new things and are constantly updating what we know

About Maurice & Getting Into Chess

• Maurice was born in Jamaica but came to the US when he was 12 years old
• Competitiveness runs in Maurice’s family, his older brother is a 3x world champion kickboxer and his sister is a 6x world champion boxer
  • “The family was a pretty driven bunch” – Maurice Ashley
• When Maurice came to the US, they lived in Brownsville, Brooklyn
  • Since it was a rough neighborhood and there wasn’t much to do, Maurice along with his siblings and friends would play board games
    • He played a bit of chess for fun with his brother, but it wasn’t until high school that he started to take it more seriously
• Maurice really wanted to beat one of his friends in chess and discovered a library book that shared chess strategies
  • “That really stoked the fire and from then on, we played chess every single day after school” – Maurice Ashley
    • “It was basically school, homework, chess, and that was my life in highschool”

Black Bear School of Chess

• Black Bear School of chess was a group of African American males that played chess together and took it extremely seriously
  • They studied chess books and chess materials from other countries. If the sources weren’t written in English, they would take a dictionary and translate it word by word.
    • “You’re literally trying to figure out, word by word, what the explanation is…you can imagine the seriously they took chess with” – Maurice Ashley
      • The group would play and hang out together from Friday night until Sunday
• A lot of the Black Bear School players ended up becoming chess masters
  • However, Maurice recognized that to become an elite chess player, he had to expand who he played against so he started to go to different chess clubs and played grandmasters there
    • “That really took my game to another level” – Maurice Ashley

Becoming A Grandmaster

• After seeing Tiger Woods, an African American in a mostly white male sport, win the Masters, Maurice was inspired to become a chess grandmaster but became depressed because he couldn’t pursue chess full-time because he had to work during the day
  • Fortunately, Maurice was able to get a sponsor to help him pursue chess full-time
    • To move up the rankings in chess, you have to beat players better than yourself
• Chess is a lot like any other sport: You watch films of how other players play, identify their strengths and weaknesses, and try to develop strategies to beat them.
  • “You have to really dig deep into the psychology of the player through the information you’re getting from their games, that’s a huge part of our preparation” – Maurice Ashley
    • You have to study their openings, study strategies from books, and you need an experienced chess player who can train you 
      • The very top chess players usually have a team of trainers around them 

Building Mental & Physical Stamina

• To become a top chess player, you need to have a high level of mental and physical stamina:
  • To build physical stamina, you need to bike, swim, run, or do another form of cardio that you enjoy
    • “Exercise is a must” – Maurice Ashley
      • None of the top players are overweight because they all exercise regularly
  • To build mental stamina, you need to play chess consistently
    • You also need to be thoughtful and respectful of your opponent
• Practicing aikido helped Maurice with his chess game 
  • “It was life-changing, it totally took my game to another level” – Maurice Ashley
    • He recommends reading Aikido and the Dynamic Sphere: An Illustrated Introduction by Adele Westbrook and Oscar Ratti to learn more 
      • Aikido is the art of finding gaps in your opponents’ attacks
        • “When I was able to physicalize that and get it into my body and internalize it and then transfer that into mental mapping onto the chessboard, my game went to a completely different level and that’s what took me to becoming a grandmaster” 

Reaching The Top

• Maurice eventually became the first African American to become a grandmaster
  • He actually became depressed for a few months after it because he had achieved his goal and didn’t know what to do next
    • Maurice decided his next goal would be to become the best chess player that he possibly could
      • To this day, Maurice is still fascinated by the game of chess
        • “It’s made me happy all these decades” – Maurice Ashley

The Eternal Game of Chess

• Chess has been around for 1,500 years and is still loved by millions of people today
  • “The game holds an eternal fascination for the human mind” – Maurice Ashley
• When it comes to teaching chess, the teacher brings passion and spreads it to students
• If you want to play chess, there are countless ways to play and learn about the game (books, websites, etc.)
• Different styles of chess:
  • In classical chess, you can take your time and games usually last between 3-6 hours
  • In blitz chess, each side get a total of 5 minutes so games last 10 minutes or less
  • In bullet chess, each side gets 1 minute each so games last 2 minutes or less
• There is trash-talking in chess:
  • Some players make subtle remarks, one chess player would just respond with “That’s what she said”, another player just quoted Shakespeare

Studying Chess & Book Recommendations

• To learn more about chess, Maurice recommends reading:
  • Play Winning Chess by Yasser Seirawan
  • Winning Chess Openings by Yasser Seirawan
  • Winning Chess Strategies by Yasser Seirawan
  • Winning Chess Tactics by Yasser Seirawan
  • Winning Chess Combinations by Yasser Seirawan
  • Winning Chess Brilliancies by Yasser Seirawan
• If you want to learn about the path to becoming a champion, Maurice highly recommends reading biography books such as:
  • I Never Had It Made: An Autobiography of Jackie Robinson by Jackie Robinson and Alfred Duckett
  • My Bondage and My Freedom by Frederick Douglass
  • Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom by David W. Blight
• The book, Passages: Predictable Crises of Adult Life by Gail Sheehy, taught Maurice about the different stages of life and the predictable problems that come up throughout it
• The book, Mastery: The Keys to Success and Long-Term Fulfillment by George Leonard, taught Maurice about the path to becoming a master and how to deal with plateaus
• The book, The Half-Life of Facts: Why Everything We Know Has an Expiration Date by Samuel Arbesman, talks about how facts change over time because we learn new things and are constantly updating what we know

Education Needs Fixing

• Maurice would like to see reform in police tactics and public education
  • Police officers should be champions of justice and children should get equal opportunities for education in school
    • Schools need better resources such as computers and books for each student
      • COVID really exposed the inequities between students: Some kids have poor WIFI and need to share one laptop with their siblings which makes it much more difficult for them to learn
        • “Potentially for the next year and a half, these kids are going to fall behind even further, it’s heartbreaking” – Maurice Ashley

Tim Ferriss Show : book recommendations, chess, chess master, trash talking
Notes By Alex Wiec