That does not give a true account of the pride and tragedy of chess (Morphy). Between the age of 13 when he more or less stopped playing, and when he toured Europe, Morphy studied his true passion - law. He only went on the tour of Europe because he graduated too young to be admitted to the bar. Given that he would have to wait two years before he could practice law, he thought he might as well play chess. He went to Europe in part to challenge Staunton, who billed himself as the Word Chess Champion. Staunton absolutely refused to play Morphy under any circumstances. In any event, when he returned home and opened his practice, he was unable to in fact practice the law because all his "clients" were in fact just people who wanted to talk to him about chess. Later, when he proposed to the woman he loved, he was turned down because she, in her words, would not lower herself to marry a mere chess player. So Morphy's tragedy is that his unparalleled brilliance at chess ended up thwarting the two things he really cared about - the law and his love. What for him was a mere idle pass time, because he was so good at it, ruined his life.
While waiting to agree on a date Morphy played 10 grandmasters at the same time and beat all but 2. The other guy heard about this and never agreed to play Morphy because of it
Karl: I have no skills I've mastered Also Karl: proceeds to open three beer bottles with the severed leg of a cricket, a chip of blue paint, and the air itself respectively.
If you want an example of people quitting when they realise the opponent is better, there's a tale about one of the tokagawa shogun a ranging a match between his best samurai an a wandering master. After an hour of standing opposite each other and no movement, the samurai turned to the shogun and declared he had lost, because he could see no opening in which to attack
There's also the funny Morphy story where he chased Henry Staunton (one of the greatest players of the era and an unofficial world chess champion) around europe and america with a chessboard because staunton would keep agreeing to play Morphy, but then back out due to 'sudden illness' or some other excuse a week before the game
In chess it's considered common decency to concede when you know you're probably going to lose Edit: blindfolded chess is actually very common. The current world champion has played and beaten as many as 5 people at the same time while blindfolded.
Yeah and now theres tons of videos to watch to learn, recordings, books, online practice always, etc etc. Theres so many ways to master something now. This guy had to roam the world to fight the best of the best and was still winning. Different times dude. Changes everything
@@hipstergod not really. Blindfold chess has always been a thing. Even I can do it, and I'm just a typical club player. There has to be at LEAST a million people who can do it. It requires less chess skill than it does math and memorization skill
...This does bring up the best/worst idea ever: "The Fact Fiend meet/greet and Pup Quiz" there all the questions are super obscure bits of info, so nearly no one gets a single question right!
Karl has retired shortly after beating every single bottle opener in Europe in a contest; how well he can crack open a cold one with any object, he now sees no purpose in the activity he once was fond of
I like to think that, while owning a law firm, he threw somebody out for talking about chess, not giving them enough time to explain that they wanted him to represent in them in an altercation *over* a chess match. Which is a shame, too, because that fool would have run circles around the opposition.
I am disappointed you didn't talk about that one chess story where the americans had a match against that time USSR, and the american dude mindfucked the USSR member so hard he went insane
The USSR guy(Boris Spassky) went insane during the match. The American(Bobby Fischer) went insane many years later. Its one of the most famous matches in chess history
Always fun to see videos that talk about chess from channels that arnt exclusively chess. One thing I find interesting is the fascination with blindfolded chess. From the outside it seems like this remarkable ability, but in actuality it just comes from years of visualizing moves when you calculate continuations over the board. When you read chess books you use notation which allows you to give a value to each square so that every move can be played without a board even being in front of you.(example 1. d4 d5 2. c4 dxc4...) Blindfold chess is something that most top level players can do and even IM and FM's often can do it as well.
I remember hearing a story about a little girl who was a chess master at something like 6 years old, and her father had apparently trained her in order to see if he could cause her to develop into a genius at it or something. Related, brain scans of chess masters show that after playing so many games, they don't use the same parts of their brains to analyze the board as everyone else. Most use the same parts for logic and mathematics, masters use the part that recognizes faces, so it would make sense that the best time to develop someone into a master chess player is at a very young age when their brain is still forming and can make that change rapidly.
That should have been called off before that referees have discretion to abandon a match if it's that one sided. The team still wins but the loosers don't get so badly humiliated.
RE: boxing vasyl lomachenko has made many opponents quit on the stool after being outboxed for several rounds. they weren't knocked out or injured, they just gave up cuz they were so outclassed.
Wrong... do further research ... his family wanted him to be a lawyer... chess was fine as a child , but they wanted him to focus on a respectable profession the older he got.
There's something that's very particularly humiliating about dedicating your life to a particular pursuit, only to have the greatest ever person at it dismiss it as a pastime.
Lol my old local had 2 pub quiz nights one the generic everyone should know a little of something quiz and then Sunday night had what was known as the regulars pub quiz with extremely random obscure questions. As this pub was a very very old pub in Australia and was known for its more Bohemian clientele of all ages on the off days like Sunday to Thursday and was basically a metal heads pub on the busy days. Sadly it's not around anymore especially for me as I was the last of 15 generations of regulars to this pub in my own family.
In the chess world Paul Morphy is legendary, and is regarded by some as the best Chess Player of all time. A famous game that is taught to all beginners is the so called Opera Game. Morphy was attending the opera as the guest of Duke of Brunswick and Count de Vauvenargues, two gifted amatures. While watching the opera the two men challenged Morphy to a game of chess. You can imagine that Morphy just wanted to watch the opera. The two men played black together. Morphy crushed them in 17 moves and went back to watching the show. Morphy's dominance in the game is so instructive that it's taught to chess players to this day, and the game has it's own Wikipedia page.
Here in russia we have a game for weird obscure knowledge - it's called "what? Where? When?". They play it on TV and in universities. The questions are like "in 18xx a ship full of coffee drown - what was invented as a result?" Etc (A question is required to be possible to guess via logic)
I've been binging Fact Fiend throughout the day and I noticed that there is potential just for outtakes as more Fact Fiend. Example: Karl is plastered or just goes on a 10 to 20 minute tangent; that could be extra material. BTW, I've subbed to your other channels.
if ever you do a fact fiend meet up, you should hold your own quiz on obscure knowledge rather than general knowledge. Perhaps on subjects you've covered in your videos.
Hey Karl, what are your thoughts on 2 minute noodles I have just had 3 packets in a big bowl after 6 pints of Guinness & a half a bottle of scotch, IMO, best drunk food ever. Please respond. All good if not, but will be disappointed.
I call shenanigans! Once you've drunk 4 pints of Guinness you are full - fact. Anything after 4 pints of Guinness is like a wafer thin mint to Mr Creosote.
I worked in a hotel once, and we had a group of chess players in. During a break in the play, a big group were in the lobby chatting about all their best wins. Next thing I know, the GM came out of his office and ordered them all to leave the area. They all left and I asked him why he'd done that. He looked at me and said, "If there's one thing I absolutely CANNOT stand, it's Chess Nuts Boasting In An Open Foyer!"
If you want a real world example of running off the side in Smash Bros, check out the Mike Tyson v Andrew Golota. Guy was out matched, practically begged his corner to stop the fight and ended up having to just walk off.
I'm good at chess; but there is another simpler game that I refuse to play because I don't lose. I care nothing for it. One girl back in high school spent all day tracking me down because she kept losing. I eventually lost on purpose, after dozens of plays, to get her to stop. Rock, Paper, Scissors A combination of psychological observation combined with noticing small finger flexes made it so I mostly won and occasionally tied. There are three options and people are predictable when you narrow their choices. I prefer chess, but no one wants to play because I win. People are fine with R-P-S because it's quick and me winning is more of a gimmick. Chess takes time, frustrates, and losing questions their intellect. I understand the guy stopping. I stopped caring about winning years ago, and will secretly handicap myself because it's nice to have company.
The understanding of the Dunning-Kruger effect will allow you to understand his statement about mastery. Basically, this dude that can go on and on about details we can hardly pick out realizes just how far away true mastery is for him, and to effect, at least politely how far a gulf lies between the average person and mastery.
He's basically one of those people who do dark souls no hit runs with bongo drums
No he does Dark Souls no hit run with bongo drums while blind folded.
He pvps with the handmaidens ladle
Upsidedown
All of this ^ with one hand tied behind his back.
@@landonletterman831 lol
That does not give a true account of the pride and tragedy of chess (Morphy). Between the age of 13 when he more or less stopped playing, and when he toured Europe, Morphy studied his true passion - law. He only went on the tour of Europe because he graduated too young to be admitted to the bar. Given that he would have to wait two years before he could practice law, he thought he might as well play chess. He went to Europe in part to challenge Staunton, who billed himself as the Word Chess Champion. Staunton absolutely refused to play Morphy under any circumstances. In any event, when he returned home and opened his practice, he was unable to in fact practice the law because all his "clients" were in fact just people who wanted to talk to him about chess. Later, when he proposed to the woman he loved, he was turned down because she, in her words, would not lower herself to marry a mere chess player. So Morphy's tragedy is that his unparalleled brilliance at chess ended up thwarting the two things he really cared about - the law and his love. What for him was a mere idle pass time, because he was so good at it, ruined his life.
Tom Curtis you seem really smart so I don’t know if you’ll appreciate this but I just gave you your 69th like
If she refused him because he was "merely a chess player" than she didn't deserve him.
"I'm the best chess player in the world" but won't play the guy everyone else thinks is the best hmmm
@@sunwukong5791 People have their reasons. Might have been that he was busy or not feeling up to it.
While waiting to agree on a date Morphy played 10 grandmasters at the same time and beat all but 2. The other guy heard about this and never agreed to play Morphy because of it
Karl: I have no skills I've mastered
Also Karl: proceeds to open three beer bottles with the severed leg of a cricket, a chip of blue paint, and the air itself respectively.
Fire nation would like a word with you.
If you want an example of people quitting when they realise the opponent is better, there's a tale about one of the tokagawa shogun a ranging a match between his best samurai an a wandering master. After an hour of standing opposite each other and no movement, the samurai turned to the shogun and declared he had lost, because he could see no opening in which to attack
@@Antinxi Did you mean regards?
@@2dark4u88 Your assessment is doodoo
Tarkus JONH-CENA to be fair their armor was made of wood
Musashi
@@Valiguss really? I thought it was ceramic.
General knowledge is an ocean that's three feet deep while thorough research is a well with no bottom
There's also the funny Morphy story where he chased Henry Staunton (one of the greatest players of the era and an unofficial world chess champion) around europe and america with a chessboard because staunton would keep agreeing to play Morphy, but then back out due to 'sudden illness' or some other excuse a week before the game
In chess it's considered common decency to concede when you know you're probably going to lose
Edit: blindfolded chess is actually very common. The current world champion has played and beaten as many as 5 people at the same time while blindfolded.
Yeah and now theres tons of videos to watch to learn, recordings, books, online practice always, etc etc. Theres so many ways to master something now. This guy had to roam the world to fight the best of the best and was still winning.
Different times dude. Changes everything
@@hipstergod not really. Blindfold chess has always been a thing. Even I can do it, and I'm just a typical club player. There has to be at LEAST a million people who can do it. It requires less chess skill than it does math and memorization skill
...This does bring up the best/worst idea ever: "The Fact Fiend meet/greet and Pup Quiz" there all the questions are super obscure bits of info, so nearly no one gets a single question right!
I thought you were the "master of opening beer bottles with anything available" or are you retired now?
Karl has retired shortly after beating every single bottle opener in Europe in a contest; how well he can crack open a cold one with any object, he now sees no purpose in the activity he once was fond of
Hector Gomez no there is one single way he can crack open a cold one with a live bird. Ha beat that
@@Rock-my2ko he does that to warm up for cracking beers open with ants.
I like to think that, while owning a law firm, he threw somebody out for talking about chess, not giving them enough time to explain that they wanted him to represent in them in an altercation *over* a chess match.
Which is a shame, too, because that fool would have run circles around the opposition.
"General knowledge is a 3 foot deep ocean. What we're doing here is Mariana trench dives."
I am disappointed you didn't talk about that one chess story where the americans had a match against that time USSR, and the american dude mindfucked the USSR member so hard he went insane
The Dude Have you got a source I can read about this?
Actually it was the American who went insane. Look up Bobby Ficher
The USSR guy(Boris Spassky) went insane during the match. The American(Bobby Fischer) went insane many years later. Its one of the most famous matches in chess history
@@michalszerszen9638 he who goes insane last, goes insane best
Fisher was the one who actually went insane and ended up be an antisemite who hates his home country
In boxing there is a boxer who has made his opponents quit very early called lomachenko he even made an Olympic champion rigondeaux quit
He ain't called no mas chenko for nothing.
Karl!
Karl Smallwood!
The bravest pioneer!
No topic too broad!
No knowledge too deep!
It's him!
Karl Smallwooood!
I really respect people that can quit while they're ahead and refuse to give in to toxicity.
I have the same pub quiz problem, I like knowing lots about odd little things.
A 3 foot deep ocean compared to the 2 mile deep pond.
I love seeing the end of the video to see what the background and then watch the video and understand why that photo appeared.
Always fun to see videos that talk about chess from channels that arnt exclusively chess. One thing I find interesting is the fascination with blindfolded chess. From the outside it seems like this remarkable ability, but in actuality it just comes from years of visualizing moves when you calculate continuations over the board. When you read chess books you use notation which allows you to give a value to each square so that every move can be played without a board even being in front of you.(example 1. d4 d5 2. c4 dxc4...) Blindfold chess is something that most top level players can do and even IM and FM's often can do it as well.
I wonder what Karl's ELO is and how it changes with his BAC
This is good viewing while you snacking
I remember hearing a story about a little girl who was a chess master at something like 6 years old, and her father had apparently trained her in order to see if he could cause her to develop into a genius at it or something. Related, brain scans of chess masters show that after playing so many games, they don't use the same parts of their brains to analyze the board as everyone else. Most use the same parts for logic and mathematics, masters use the part that recognizes faces, so it would make sense that the best time to develop someone into a master chess player is at a very young age when their brain is still forming and can make that change rapidly.
This would be like if Usain Bolt retired from sprinting after the '08 Olympics, then occasionally ran a race barefoot or backwards
I saw a college football (soccer) game that was 30-0 at halftime..... Winthrop University vs. Brevard
That should have been called off before that referees have discretion to abandon a match if it's that one sided. The team still wins but the loosers don't get so badly humiliated.
6:25 He wept for there were no more worlds to conquer.
you found something ppl like watching and you do it way better then I've ever seen anyone do and I love and I respect it keep it up bro good luck
RE: boxing
vasyl lomachenko has made many opponents quit on the stool after being outboxed for several rounds. they weren't knocked out or injured, they just gave up cuz they were so outclassed.
This is my favourite channel on TH-cam, bloody amazing, so funny. Please never stop uploading
One time a football team lost by more than 300 goals and had 99% possession because they got pissed at the ref
Of all "give up" stories, the greatest still has to be the "no mas" boxing match between Sugar Ray Leonard and Roberto Duran.
This is the best channel on TH-cam and I look forward to every upload because I know it’s going to be funny
4:40 That's a moment in Always Sunny where they're playing the made-up game and they nail the board to the bar prematurely and Mac tries to flip it
If one punch man was about chess, Murphy would be saitama
One of the coolest Chess battles ever is in No Game No Life.
Omg yes.
I guess.. but no rules were followed
@@X6_Nitro I mean that was the whole trick to the game. And rules were followed, just not for vary long
I want a whole video of bloopers!
I’d step in smack the badgers with a chessboard and buy morphy a drink “ wanna play cards?”
Keep being amazing ❤️
As a chess buff, I’m impressed with the knowledge and presentation. You’d get a lot of material from looking into Judit Polgar.
Love this dudes parents. Figure out what he likes and is good at and throw him in that direction as hard as their pockets can
Wrong... do further research ... his family wanted him to be a lawyer... chess was fine as a child , but they wanted him to focus on a respectable profession the older he got.
Would have been hilarious if just to troll people he started playing checkers
There's something that's very particularly humiliating about dedicating your life to a particular pursuit, only to have the greatest ever person at it dismiss it as a pastime.
Lol my old local had 2 pub quiz nights one the generic everyone should know a little of something quiz and then Sunday night had what was known as the regulars pub quiz with extremely random obscure questions. As this pub was a very very old pub in Australia and was known for its more Bohemian clientele of all ages on the off days like Sunday to Thursday and was basically a metal heads pub on the busy days. Sadly it's not around anymore especially for me as I was the last of 15 generations of regulars to this pub in my own family.
3:50 i love how you had to add the soccer ball for us Cdn's and Ameicans's
In Mtg when you know your gonna lose you stall or concede I hate when they stall
Just sayin, this is my new favorite channel to watch
3:26 I was waiting for the Mango vs. Taj “Unplug your controller” clip.
Murphy when he quit: I'm pretty tired, think I'll go home now.
23 minutes have passed and there are now over 4,000 views on this video
SpaceTech Empire well now 23 hours have passed
"When he saw his father/uncle play"
I didn't know people from Alabama knew how to play chess?
I didn't know clout was worth pride.
In the chess world Paul Morphy is legendary, and is regarded by some as the best Chess Player of all time.
A famous game that is taught to all beginners is the so called Opera Game. Morphy was attending the opera as the guest of Duke of Brunswick and Count de Vauvenargues, two gifted amatures.
While watching the opera the two men challenged Morphy to a game of chess. You can imagine that Morphy just wanted to watch the opera. The two men played black together.
Morphy crushed them in 17 moves and went back to watching the show.
Morphy's dominance in the game is so instructive that it's taught to chess players to this day, and the game has it's own Wikipedia page.
When Karl messes up a line
Short version: 0:00 ----->10:07
Here in russia we have a game for weird obscure knowledge - it's called "what? Where? When?".
They play it on TV and in universities.
The questions are like "in 18xx a ship full of coffee drown - what was invented as a result?" Etc
(A question is required to be possible to guess via logic)
3:56 watch chess. It happens every tournament multiple times.
I've been binging Fact Fiend throughout the day and I noticed that there is potential just for outtakes as more Fact Fiend. Example: Karl is plastered or just goes on a 10 to 20 minute tangent; that could be extra material. BTW, I've subbed to your other channels.
if ever you do a fact fiend meet up, you should hold your own quiz on obscure knowledge rather than general knowledge.
Perhaps on subjects you've covered in your videos.
Hey Karl, what are your thoughts on 2 minute noodles I have just had 3 packets in a big bowl after 6 pints of Guinness & a half a bottle of scotch, IMO, best drunk food ever. Please respond. All good if not, but will be disappointed.
I call shenanigans!
Once you've drunk 4 pints of Guinness you are full - fact. Anything after 4 pints of Guinness is like a wafer thin mint to Mr Creosote.
I worked in a hotel once, and we had a group of chess players in. During a break in the play, a big group were in the lobby chatting about all their best wins. Next thing I know, the GM came out of his office and ordered them all to leave the area. They all left and I asked him why he'd done that. He looked at me and said, "If there's one thing I absolutely CANNOT stand, it's Chess Nuts Boasting In An Open Foyer!"
1:48 did no one see the cut or whatever? Poor Karl I wonder how many times he screws up
Karl you do better takes when you drink😂😂
He is the one punch man of chess
You guys nailed the Spider-Man thing
30 yo man who lost to Morphy: I lost cause of LAG
There’s an mma fight where the other guy just keeps taking hits and the other guy just gives up
Not quite the boxer match you described, but did remind me of Sammy Davis Jr. vs. Wilt Chamberlain in a boxing skit :D
For more about Morphy, watch GM Ben Finegold's videos on him.
Props for the bottom clip. Just yes!
So he was like satama so good he was bored
He spared himself 2 hours of his life and played a game where such things are easy to proof.
Awesome videos... I was wondering if you could do a video about the time batman fought aliens (as in the alien movies).
Karl: *does a black screen transition
Me: "oh is this an ad starting"
Do a video on year of the rabbit it’s too funny could only imagine the video you would come up with haha love the vids been long time fan 👍
If you want a real world example of running off the side in Smash Bros, check out the Mike Tyson v Andrew Golota. Guy was out matched, practically begged his corner to stop the fight and ended up having to just walk off.
3:41 Nick Robinson moment
2 minutes my earliest time.
If Karl was immortal he'd eventually learn all of human history to the highest degree
5:30 That's like Logan Paul blaming his loss on three sneezes
Yo that boxing match kind of happened. Rigondeaux vs Lomachenko. Rigo forfeited in his corner lol
There sounds like parallels to Josh Waitzkin (who Searching for Bobby Fischer is about) here - he walked away at age 23.
Loving the can of Pepsi max in the latest videos Karl 😆
You've mastered research and presenting obscure facts on youtube friend.
If you want to see the Boxing equivalent of running off the edge. Look up the "No Mas" fight
He secretly had the millennium puzzle and was possessed by the pharaoh this whole time to help him be the king of games.
The Keanu Reeves of Chess
He made a contribution to the beginning of trolling in sports
The guy that threw in the towel against Butterbean after Butterbean knocked out the ref.
my cousin bet me in chess whilst blind and halfway across the room
Go on Pointless dude, that's the home of obscure answers
I'm good at chess; but there is another simpler game that I refuse to play because I don't lose.
I care nothing for it.
One girl back in high school spent all day tracking me down because she kept losing. I eventually lost on purpose, after dozens of plays, to get her to stop.
Rock, Paper, Scissors
A combination of psychological observation combined with noticing small finger flexes made it so I mostly won and occasionally tied.
There are three options and people are predictable when you narrow their choices.
I prefer chess, but no one wants to play because I win.
People are fine with R-P-S because it's quick and me winning is more of a gimmick.
Chess takes time, frustrates, and losing questions their intellect.
I understand the guy stopping. I stopped caring about winning years ago, and will secretly handicap myself because it's nice to have company.
General knowledge is a shallow ocean
Obscure knowledge is a collection of two mile deep puddles
The understanding of the Dunning-Kruger effect will allow you to understand his statement about mastery. Basically, this dude that can go on and on about details we can hardly pick out realizes just how far away true mastery is for him, and to effect, at least politely how far a gulf lies between the average person and mastery.
Y'all are killing me. Winfield is pronounced Win Field not Winifred.
they were saying the wrong name
Dude. That chess joke is amazing.
later, loewenthal challenged him to a match and lost 10 - 4 (9 wins morphy, 3 loewenthal, 2 draws)
This would make a great movie
How to never lose a chess game, don’t play it
Karls talent: Halo
Imagine if this dude was alive for 5D chess with multiverse time travel
10:45 what about depression?
If you want to see a boxer quitting at the start, Sonny Liston vs Muhammed Ali second match.