EP 445- “It Worked So Well That I Stopped Doing It”: Adult Improver Nicholas Sloan on Dealing with Burnout After a Rapid Rating Rise
Nicholas Sloan is a Wisconsin-based Network Engineer, a dad of 4, and an extremely motivated chess improver. Usually. But after an incredible run of gaining 500+ rating points in two years, fueled by ...
5 Aug 202558min
EP 444 – Dr. Benjamin Balas on Chess Streaks, Blunders, and Brain Science
Dr. Benjamin (Ben) Balas is an MIT-educated professor of psychology at North Dakota State University, where his research focuses on visual recognition. He’s also a passionate chess player who blogs fr...
29 Juli 202553min
EP 443- GM Jan Gustafsson on Building Opening Repertoires, Freestyle Chess, Father Time, and the Usual Array of Nonsense
Opening expert, Twitch streamer, former Team Magnus member, and longtime friend of the pod, GM Jan Gustafsson is back for another fun and far-reaching interview! We talk about the origins of his new C...
22 Juli 20251h 14min
EP 442- GM Johan Hellsten: Why Defending Is So Difficult — And How to Improve At It
EP 442- GM Johan Hellsten: Why Defending Is So Difficult — And How to Improve At It GM Johan Hellsten returns to Perpetual Chess for a deep dive into one of the most overlooked yet essential chess s...
15 Juli 20251h 7min
EP 441- WCM Hannah Sayce: The 24-year old Twitch Streamer on the Key Factors Behind Her Rapid Rise to the WCM Title
In just a few years, 24-year-old Australian Twitch streamer Hannah Sayce went from playing casual online games during lockdown to earning the Woman Candidate Master (WCM) title and competing in intern...
1 Juli 202543min
EP 440- GM Alexandr Fier: “I Blunder a Lot” – One of the World’s Most Active Grandmasters on Intuition, Endgame Studies, and Maintaining His Love For the Game
GM Alexandr Fier is a 5 time champion of Brazil and 9 time chess Olympian. He also recently qualified for the FIDE World Cup for the 8th time by finishing tied for first at the American Continental to...
24 Juni 20251h 7min
EP 439 — Samuel Sonning (Founder of NoctieAI): The Instructive Value of Memorizing Games, the Benefit of Losing Rating Points, and a Deep Dive on Chess and AI
This week’s guest is Samuel Sonning, a Swedish computer scientist, former Google engineer, and founder of NoctieAI—a user-friendly chess platform featuring rating tests and bots designed to play like ...
17 Juni 202550min
EP 438- Tony Ballard: Chess, Freedom, and Lessons Learned From 26 Years in Prison
In this memorable episode of Perpetual Chess, we welcome back Tony Ballard, who spent 26 years incarcerated and credits chess with helping him change the course of his life. When we last spoke in Epis...
10 Juni 20251h 6min
