I might recognise Magnus, except he was with Liv Tyler. And I might recognise Liv, except she was with Magnus. My last two pathetic brain cells just went into meltdown. At one point, I thought I saw a squirrel.
Dear Chess Hustlers: When a "stranger" shows up to play you a game, and they are accompanied by a beautiful A-list actress and a full posse and camera crew, something might be a amiss.
"Camera crew" - LOL it was just me with a small prosumer camera. No lights and sound gear or anything. A few passersby recognised Liv, but not the hustlers. Magnus could easily walk around NY unrecognized at this point.
That guy with the crazy teeth had a squirrel crawling on his shoulder. Judging by how he carried on speaking I would guess that is normal for him. How bizarre
What is disturbing to me is that he could probably kick my ass at chess. I am a mediocre player so I might have a chance, but some of those hustlers are pretty good. So I lose to a guy with 9 teeth and a squirrel on his shoulder.
I doubt chess at that level is a ton of fun for super grandmasters. It's too easy. Hikaru plays coffee chess with a 5-1 minute handicap and wins every game.
That chess “hustler” is actually a really nice guy - most guys are pretty cool there and at union square park.. but for any tourists wanting chess games in the park , Bryant Park is the best location.
Thats most of the hustlers in the city. They like making money but they also do enjoy playing with randoms. If you love chess, no one in ny is going to bitch you out no matter the skill level.
I remember the first time I went to NY was in the winter, so I went to the chess and checkers house in Central Park, and watched Bruce Pandolfini play a guy I didn't recognize, but it was an intense game. I saw weird-colored squirrels running around everywhere. I'm from Texas and our squirrels are brown. When I was going to tech school for the AF at Keesler in Biloxi, there was this squirrel that used to hang around on our break in this tree. He was sooo fat from everyone feeding him, and I watched him steal a guy's muffin once. Hilarious, because it was one of those big muffins.
since liv tyler is in this video i am guessing its required to use lotr analogy basically we have at 1:34 Radagast explaining he did not know he is facing sauron only that the opponent is a very powerful foe :)
Magnus did some modelling around that time with Liv Tyler so maybe they became friends while they were in New York or maybe they just came from a photo shoot together.
As i remember, washington square park used to have some really good players. Alot of international players used to come from playing at the world trade center tourney to that park. They also used to have much better money players daily over there.
Funny the comments that the hustlers should recognize Magnus Carlsen. Well, only chess players would recognize Magnus Carlsen but pretty much any one on the planet would recognize Liv Tyler, and it wouldn't take a rocket scientist to conclude that, if she's just standing there watching some guy play chess,that guy is probably pretty good.
IDK but it's kinda heartwarming to see the big and famous Magnus, accompanied by Liv, playing chess with some bums in New York. To these people, chess is a life-saving connection to a world which otherwise they have trouble connecting to. I'd love to see a documentary about this unique sub-/anti-culture.
These guys scam tourists who don't play chess, they use traps and tricks to win against people who are below 1300, they don't play chess, they scam people.
What a dumb thing to say. Most of them are averaged around 1800 USCF. There are even a couple hustlers in square park estimated at 2300. Regardless of the "tricks and traps" they use, they're still very good. If they weren't good, they wouldn't make any money.
lot of people who play chess don't know who magnus is. my dad used to be very good and followed kasparov's and karpov's careers but he doesn't know who magnus is.
@@Chessdigital 1. Why is Liv Tyler there? 2. Why doesn't the guy know who Magnus Carlsen is? 3. Why doesn't the guy know who Liv Tyler is? 4. Why is there a black squirrel running around on the man? 5. Did Liv summon the squirrel with her elf magic? 6. Or is the man a wizard? 7. When the man said he didn't know who Magnus was, why didn't Gríma Wormtongue say "One of the Dunedane Rangers I thought he was..." and then mention Magnus' ring. 8. Is Magnus the King of Gondor?
@@jherbranson That is a lot of questions! OK: 1) Magnus and Liv were both promoting the G-star Raw clothing line for a season. So they go to know each other, and when Magnus was in NY, the met for a chess lesson. I was invited to join and film. Several years later the footage was used in Magnus (2016). 2+3) He's a chess hustler and not necessarily following top echelons of pro chess. Guess he's not a movie fan. 4-8) I'll refrain from speculating further. :P
being a FIDE master is still just a title and it requires lots of opportunities to be even rated. these chess hustlers just didn’t have the chance, opportunity or privilege that this FIDE masters had. maybe because of money or any other reasons. i’m sure a lot unrated chess players might be at least GM level but either didn’t bother to pursue it or didn’t have the right opportunity for it.
Something a little cruel in this. After humiliating them, the movie star and the world champion might have offered to get some of those hustlers' teeth fixed, at least.
Don't know, but some of them are pretty good. You also have to watch them. Years ago I was playing one of those guys, and noticed he somehow had 2 bishops on white about halfway through the game.
Yep! You gotta watch them when they're adjusting their pieces. I just read on a forum that some of them are a good 1800 . And if they can cheat, add another 300 on top of that.
