We know the audio was a bit rough on this one, and we know that Maxime had to do a workout holding the mic, here's the explanation: The mic he uses has a much better audio quality, and he was happy to hold it throughout the episode, its not super heavy. We want our guests to look and sound the best, sometimes to our own detriment. We are a small team, and try to give you, the audience that tunes into our show, the best quality with each and every episode. Unfortunately, since this is a traveling podcast, sometimes we have to do what we can with the equipment we have at that particular moment. This episode was filmed on 12.16.2023, therefore the Candidates picture was not yet clear. Hope you guys enjoyed the conversation, we certainly did.

One thing I didn't mention explicitly on the podcast, and one of the main reasons I am so adamant about the need for playoffs: Very often in RRs or Swiss tournaments, the last rounds may be anticlimactic with everything already decided and either quick draws or games without real sporting value happening, while the last game should in my mind be the absolute peak of the tournament in terms of tension, especially if we want to engage the audience through the broadcast.

Amazing display of biceps strength by Maxime Vachier-Lagrave who held his mic for one hour 40 minutes

The 2016 Warriors reference was unexpected. I am a huge basketball fan so that was funny. love MVL

Love the C-Squared boys and MVL too. Epic episode, keep up the great work

MVL and Fabi are one of the few well adjusted super GMs haha. This was a good one guys. Also love the subtle 2800 smile that Fabi gave at 1:30.

Always a pleasure listening to Maxime. He's such a polite, friendly guy and has interesting things to say. The way he explained the goat-car-paradox finally made me understand it.

One of my favourite episodes, such a nice flow to the conversation.

I loved how comfortable Maxime was with them. Though Maxime & Fabi are competitors but they seems to share mutual respect. Nice bonding

MVL is such a class act, great talk ♟️

One of the disturbing things that Fabi recounted in an earlier episode regarding cheating - his candy bar set off the scanner, but since it appeared to be a candy bar, they admitted it anyway If someone has decided to cheat and gone to the effort of making a clandestine electronic device, the easiest part is coating it with granola and wrapping it in a foil wrapper... If cheating OTB is truly the concern that MVL suggests, you can't have humans simply ignoring the security alarms... Even if it looks just like a candy bar in a foil wrapper

That was a great podcast, I loved how open Maxime was to sharing his thoughts. You should get him back on again in the future.

1:20:35 I think the problem is that anyone who has seriously studied statistics (Me personally I did Maths & Stats at Uni and I'm currently an analyst) knows that it's really, *really* easy to make the stats say whatever you want them to say to push your agenda. The act of doing statistical analysis really isn't that difficult, things get a bit more complicated with multivariate analysis but still. The hard part isn't producing the statistics (these days you can literally just use a couple of functions in R or Matlab), the hard part is the data selection, and interpreting the meaning of the stats, and I think that's where even mathematicians go wrong. It's the old stats joke where you can conclude that it's safest to drive drunk, as only 15% of car crashes involve drunk drivers. That's clearly nonsense intuitively, but the issue isn't the numbers, the issue is with how you interpret those numbers and how you're framing them (in this case, comparing drunk driving crashes to all crashes isn't as meaningful as comparing drunk driving crashes to known drunk driving incidents). So when you see people get into the stats with regards to chess cheating, the issue is almost never in the numbers or p-value or anything itself, it's in the data sampling process, or the setting of the null hypothesis, or the interpretation of a statistically significant result. And it's ironic because generally, more logically minded people are famously quite bad at interpretation, since in stats there's rarely a correct answer, just a probability something happened.

I love the C-Squared podcast, keep it up guys, we need more episodes.

Thanks for gathering the two best personalities in this game.

you did not have a clipped mic to give the poor guy ??? I feel bad af for him holding that mic for almost 2 hours

I can say confidently that along perhaps with Fabiano and Vishi, MVL is most probably the overall smartest super GM around. Awesome podcast anyway!

french chess commentary is like the arabic commentary of football

The fact you guys included footage in this interview shows how much you're improving the quality of the podcast. Well done, enjoyed it a lot!!!!

Great player and person MVL! Thanks for sharing your thoughts on the podcast.

MVL's right arm is very strong.

The reason I'd like to see a play-off at the end of the Blitz World Championship is that it's a bit long for a Swiss system. By the end of the tournament, it can happen that all the well-placed players have already played against one another, so that the whole thing is decided by games between them and lower-ranked player who aren't playing for anything anymore. It can be a bit anticlimactic, sometimes.

Why you are letting your guest holding big ass Microphone

(Just a little offtopic.) I always enjoy seeing Fabi’s original hairstyle (without gardening clippers intervention). If you’re reading this, aww man ☘I like your style so much🍀

Why MVL must holding the mic for 90 minutes???

Great episode today , loved the warriors 73-9 reference( though I’m a sixers fan) Would love to see levy on the podcast!

Honestly MVL is such a pleasure to listen to hope he comes back to the podcast

The way Maxime explained Monty-Hall problem is exactly how I explain my friends the problems. lol

Another fascinating interview / podcast. Thanks to all!

fabi getting schooled in math. "well actually monty hall this is easy"

YOOOOOO!!!! FABIANO CARAUANA KNOWS WHO NINTENDUDE IS, AND WATCHES THE SMASH SCENE!!! That's actually so awesome and so crazy. Wow

What a shame there's no better mics but as a french i'm very happy to see and listen Maxime and the conversation was great 🙂

Very interesting conversation with MVL, thank you.

This is an absolutely stunning podcast - great hosts, great guests, great discussion. It's my favourite chess discussion by far. But please please do something about the sound! In this episode it was all over the place with Fabi coming in and out, completely unmatched with MVL, with Fabi's lows practically inaudible and even his highs were not of great quality. But it's not just this episode - in many episodes it seems Fabi's mic is not great. Sure it must be possible to improve this audio setup, then we can all relax and listen to your wisdom!

this channel needs to reach 5M subs, the content is excellent i can't stop watching it

If I had to guess which chess player thinks the solution to the Monty Hall problem is obvious and intuitive, it's definitely MVL

Terrific discussion! Love the work C-squared is doing yo document the chess world, its personalities, talent and intricacies! Maxime is so lovely! Thanks, Christian and Fabi for hosying a great conversation.

0:22, chess version of "ankara messi".

great episode guys, mvl seems a great guy

Great podcast great to finally see maxim maybe blitzstream soon?❤ (keep up good work)

I was curious to hear about the specifics of teamwork. Some moments are recognizable to a player of any level, it made me smile a little. Thank you !!

32:11 " (about Hikaru) but one of his abilities is to go through that moment of like three five minutes of pure despair then come back and actually refocus..." 😂😂😂 so trueee ahahha

The best chess podcast in the world right now!

loving the consistency!!

Great episode. Big fan of Maxime.

i didnt know a lot of MVL but now a learned the great person and chess player he is.

Hey boys! Love the pod as always! Some constructive feedback: might want to reconsider using those clip-on mics.

Always interesting to listen to what some of the best chess players in the world have to say. Another good vid. Thumbs up.

Caruana watches Smash tournaments?!?!? BEST CHESS PLAYER EVER!

great episode, but give the guests a normal microphone xD, you are more accustomed to it then your guests.

Guys i have a question for the next podcast. Do you think Ding will defend his title? Is there a possibility of second place in the candidates being relevant again this cycle? Should Ding declare whether he plans to defend before the candidates? What effect will uncertainty play out if this remains uncertain?

Guys, love the Podcast. But please buy a good long mic so that guess can sit comfortably and talk.

Love the Beast from Lyon :) Nice guy and great player. Hope to see him get his mojo back and return to the top 10 where he belongs.

Hey i am listening to the Podcast on Spotify and ist really distracting wehen you blend in some footage and this camera Sound just Pops up can you maybe just ceap the clean audio track for spotify?

Oooh the conversation got really good at the end haha it took time to warm up haHA!

Part of the solution to the time format issue is statistical analysis of the average game length and the probability of any game lasting x amount of time. For example, if it is known that the average 45 + 30 game last x time, then players and organizers and fans can decide on whether that is reasonable and thus how many such games can reasonably be played in one day.

2:17 Kramnik would find his performance curve Interesting 😎😌

Really enjoyed this one, great job guys. I wondered if Fabi could do a deep dive into the 2018 match similar to the Sinquefield 2014 episodes? The '18 match was before I was into chess so would be really interesting to hear what Fabi's thoughts were before/during/after the games. Obviously there were a few draws 😅 so I don't know how fun it might be chess-wise, just an idea :)

In terms of tournament design, a post-day 1 ‘cut’ for seeding or a more competitive day 2 (into a top 8 cut for playoffs after, say, round 15) is what they use for some card game tournaments, so it kind of makes sense if you want to bring ‘playoff-style’ tension to a major tournament. MVL is on the right track.

So cool to hear about the Melee / Chess crossover. Fabi who is your favourite melee player?

I need a C2 ASMR channel with Maxime as a permanent host. A reading of French Math textbooks would be a good start 😂

Watching this with a coffee in my C2 mug :)

This thumbnail made me laugh so hard actually. Very nicely made!

As always very interesting, thanks!

Great interview. I will say as a mortal that in Poland the most popular "classical" format for amateurs is 30+30 and there can be 4 games a day, it is exhausting but I think if amateurs can hold then professionals will too.

that changing the door math thing @1:21:50. that was explored very clearly on mythbusters. they made it very simple to understand. it is amazing that switching doors is absolutely the correct choice.

Great episode guys

One issue that is rarely raised in time control discussions is how increment and based time influence watchability of the games. In my view it's clear it's better to have shorter based time and longer increment because then the scrambles are possible to follow and commentators have at least a bit of time to say something about the position. For this reason 15+3 control used was a disaster. Not only scrambles became too fast with too many random blunders but if you add DGT issues and production not being perfect we just didn't get to enjoy the part of the game which could be the most interesting one. For this reason imo increment should be at least 5 seconds, preferably 10. I would much prefer 5+10 instead of 15+3. The same goes for Armageddon btw. Make it 5 second increment. The argument that it gives black too big an advantage is nonsense as no one is going to bid 0 for base time meaning there exists an equilibrium point. It will be just a bit different game - most importantly one much more fun to follow for the audience.

Le premier ministre est là 🇫🇷🇫🇷🇫🇷🇫🇷🇫🇷

Guys please get three individual mics!

If you someday catch Madnus or Yan for your podcast, it would be absolutely legendary (even more than it is now😁)

great episode!

I think there definitely are solutions for the like 3 or 5 person tie-situations, like one could be to determine who has used less time for his ‘winning’ games throughout the tournament. There are more, but that I think would be the simplest one, no extra games needed etc

Loved this episode! And I totally agree with Maxime's take on statistics, you shouldn't play with it like a kid's toy, it's much more complex than it looks like

Can you find a way to fix the sound issue going forward? It would be better to listen to an episode where you do not have to regulate the sound down when MVL speaks and back up when Fabi speaks. Thank you!

Mvl is an awesome dude

The sound is mostly awful in this video.

conillet: You're absolutely right!

Ohhh Maxime !!!!!!! I love this guy man, he's best 💪❤️

It's all good but you need to improve the sound. I can barely hear Fabi

Great podcast!

its not about excitement . its about making the format to find the best player.

Yes,been waiting for MVL. 4 minutes in

Audio from Fabi and Christian was a little muffled

Sure, make the special guest hold the bigass mic while y'all sitting comfy with clip-on's. 😂

Here come the youtube audio technicians with nothing to offer.

Fabi and Maxime are the best!

It's really odd for guests to hold onto that mic during the entire podcast.

Is there any chance to get GM Mamedyarov, GM Radjabov or GM Grischuk?

Great podcast but please buy I 3rd tie microphone 😂

Nice one!! now its about time to bring the GOAT magnus

I believe Kirill's game against Giri in the last round was in the Catalan.

Wiz the Monty Hall Problem TEEEECHNICALLY, MVL is only half right, while it is true that you can never be worse off by switching doors the probability of being right can be anything between 0.5 and .66 depending on what strategy the host is playing when you pick the right door. let's say the car is behind doorA and you pick B or C obviously the host HAST to open the other and you win by switching to A but if you select door A, the host could open either B or C, we usually default to the .67 probability because we assert the principle of indifference wherein we assume the host is indifferent between opening door B and C but if the host were to hypothetically only ever open B when you choose A, the odds of gaining by switching drop to 50% again

I find the sound effect whenever you blend in extra footage way too loud and sharp. Especially when listening audio-only - I was hoping to play the episode for bed, but it became too distracting.

The discussions about playing on ICC are interesting because so many of you in the elite already have your repertoire of openings and skills acquired over the years so the process of discovery of relatively beginner things (although some people are just very good very young) as you progress is an interesting subject rather than "we know everything, everything is solved"

Nooo way you guys are talking about nintendude?? Is this a crossover episode?

1 car and 99 GOATs.

Impressed by your mathimatical knowledge, but maybe I can add that the phenomena is called "Restriced Choice" (we bridge players need to know that ;))

Awesome MVL Microphone

I have always thought that chess tournaments should be organized more like super smash brothers tournaments, but to see it actually happen like this is still pretty wild.