Ed Latimore is one of the most interesting guys I’ve ever met. His bio describes him as “an author, former professional American heavyweight boxer, competitive chess player, and the founder of Stoic Street-Smarts,” but that’s really only the tip of the iceberg. He was signed by Roc Nation Sports, he went back to school and got his physics degree at 33, he served in the Army National Guard, and he’s a leading advocate for sobriety and overcoming addiction. It seems like there are few things Ed hasn’t experienced.
To appreciate the full scope of Ed’s wisdom, I’d highly recommend purchasing his book Hard Lessons From the Hurt Business, which is available for pre-order now. (Ed and I met while working together on that book.) But in the meantime, you can check out this interview, where Ed and I discuss the similarities between chess and boxing, what differentiates an 1800 from a 1400, and the idea of “position before submission.” Listen for the full conversation: below is an edited transcript.
And: if you like this interview, let me know! I’m planning to talk to more folks from outside of the chess world about the overlap between chess and other areas of performance.
KL: Do you think that you would be the best chess boxer in the country? Because you must be pretty close, right?
EL: In terms of an overlap [between boxing and chess], yeah. Like when I'm playing focused and I'm not just tinkering with games to kill time, my rating tends to sit in the upper 1700s to 1800s. But you know, I've looked at the chess boxing matches.
I wouldn't feel good about that because I just can't see anyone being able to get hit by me. Or being able to hurt me. There are boxers who play chess and there are chess players who try to box. If you are in the former category, which is where I'm at, yeah, you know, maybe you have a chance. In fact, you definitely have a chance. If you're in the latter, like I'm not so bad at chess where you're going to walk through me. And when we switch to boxing, that is going to be a bad time for you.
People don't know how in shape you have to be to box. Let's put it like this. I'm in good shape. And when I went back and just first started sparring, I couldn't do more than two rounds, two or three. It's just a hard sport. And it's hard not only because getting hit takes it out of you too, but then you still have to move.
KL: When did you start playing chess?
EL: I was probably really young, yeah, like probably nine or 10. But in terms of taking it seriously, and when I say take it seriously, like I'm investing money, it was in 2018, when I got my first coach, Eric. He lives in Hungary and we would do lessons over Zoom. And the cool thing about Eric is, Eric is an adult improver. He's an IM, but he didn't really start playing rated chess until he was 18. And that's unusual. And so he had some really interesting ways to look at the board and really helped me improve. And for a long time, I couldn't get over 1400, and now when I play someone who's 1400, I just look at all these stupid mistakes and I'm just like, what are you doing? Why would you do that? No, that doesn't make sense. But he changed how I saw the board.
KL: You said he got you thinking about how you saw the board differently, but I'm curious, what do you think is the difference between a 1400 and a 1700? Because I have my own thoughts about that, but I'm curious what you sensed when you were making that jump.
EL: Maybe my answer will change if slash when I become stronger. But aside from not hanging pieces, right? I think the biggest difference is that there is somewhat of a plan. Like, I have a plan when I play. And that plan is reinforced by principles. Like, I can look at a choice between two moves and I can quickly eliminate one. Or at the very least, there are some things I would never even think about. And when I look at moves that are made on the occasions when I'm looking at and playing weaker players, I go, why would you do that?
More specifically, moves to open up, going for breaks, going for breaks in a semi-open position. That's really important. Or semi-closed, you know, depending on your perspective. I've recently learned there's actually a difference between semi-open and semi-closed. It's still the same general idea, but it just depends on which side the semi-open file is. But that's a big difference. You know, 1400, I don't really think they have a concept of playing for a pawn break or activating your pieces and getting them alive and well.
You know, I think about a game I lost in a tournament once where I was weaker and it just sticks out in my mind because I kept chasing and attack with pawns. And the reality was I should have went, okay, I've got the pawn center established. I've gained a tempo. I can develop the rest of my pieces because I'm not going to win the game with just my pawns. You know? And so like, that's another big difference is, okay, does this attack make sense to go after? Or should I reinforce the attack, develop more pieces?
This was a big thing Eric drilled into me, activating my bishops and to a lesser extent, my knights. He's like, when you move this bishop, how easy is it to attack? How easy is it to move off? Because if you develop your bishop onto an unstable square, then you are going to lose a tempo when it's attacked.
Another thing too is when you're playing the game from a set of memorized cues. There's a saying or something that's like amateurs study the opening and pros study the ending. Because the ending is easy. You just follow it. And then you go deep into an opening, and it's like, what do you do next? Or someone does a move you're not expecting. And then you're all off-balance.
KL: People forget that like when you study the opening, if somebody makes the "wrong" move against you, sometimes it can be good for them because they throw you off, because then all of a sudden this line you've figured out that you've memorized, you're not playing it anymore. And you have to think about what's on the board. And then it's like, oh yeah, we're playing chess again.
EL: If you zoom out, what's the goal of the opening? You want to get your pieces into the battle, ideally into the most advantageous position for them. And when you look at it that way, you kind of come to a conclusion that I reached recently, which is memorizing the opening is probably not the best use of your time. It's probably a lot better to memorize opening principles and play according to those.
And then, you know, with that, then you can determine, you know, all right, if you recognize that you're in a Queen's Gambit Accepted position versus Queen's Gambit Declined, well, that changes what your middle game goals are. For a long time, I was trying to memorize every variation of the Sicilian, and it's funny, a guy reached out to me on Instagram, and he just wanted to exchange services.
And what he was exchanging, he's like, yeah, so I'm an FM over here in Italy, and maybe I can help you with your game. And so we played a game, and I'll never forget, he said, you have to spend a lot more time learning how to play chess. You don't really have a plan for your pieces. You're just kind of, your pieces aren't coordinated, and it's very hard for you to launch an attack. And so with that, to loop back into the story, I simplified it. Every opening, no matter what a person opens up against, whether it's white, when I'm black, it's always d5. And then from there, I get to think.
KL: I had two games in my club recently that were such good examples of what you're talking about, where both games, I played a full-on line that I'd prepped in the opening system I play. It's not theory, but it's like, OK, I know I'm going to do these things. And then in one of those games, we got to the end, and black plays a move that was the first move I wasn't prepared for. And I didn't know what to do, because I just didn't understand the position well enough. And I played wrong, and she blew me off the board. And then on Monday, we got to the position, but I knew, OK, this is an isolated queen's pawn position. I am going to blockade the square in front of the IQP. And then when he starts to give me the chance, I'm going to trade pieces. I'm not going to let him get any piece activity. He can't move his light-squared bishop. I'm going to keep it back there. I'm not going to let him move it.
These are both 1800-strength players, and it's like one game, I got destroyed. In the other game, I did really well and won, because I knew what the plan was. It didn't matter that I had memorized the moves, right? I had a plan.
Being a good chess player and a pro boxer, do you see similarities between the two sports?
EL: So I just shared this reel in a fight group I'm in. It's a group with people who all trained at this gym where I used to work in some coaching. And I'm not active in there often. But I'll come in and drop some gems because I've got the proud distinction of being able to say that there's really not many other fighters from the state of Pennsylvania and certainly not from the city of Pittsburgh who have done as much as I have and know as much as I do. I shared this reel where it was elite amateur boxer versus pro.
It's immediately obvious who the pro is, if you know anything about anything. The pro is doing more and making fewer movements. And the movements he makes are well-timed, well-positioned and just more destructive. And when he opens up and does throw punches, they do more damage or have a higher connect rate, whatever, because he got his positioning correct and he's able to load off well.
What's this got to do with the initial question? I don't see specific similarities. The way you cut off the ring, sometimes I'll think about that as getting your rook to the seventh rank or something like that. And the whole idea of controlling the center or backing your opponent into the corner, I can make chess analogies there as well. But the biggest thing I see is the progression of skill follows in the same way, and more importantly, the manifestation of that skill, which is motion economy.
You ever play a game and the engine doesn't like your move, even though it's a good move, and you're like, what is wrong with you? This leads to checkmate. It's like, well, you could have gotten checkmate in three moves. You can get checkmate in the next move, but now you're doing it in three. And that's wasted economy sort of deal, right?
Or it's like they tell you in Brazilian jiu-jitsu all the time, position before submission, which is a really great idea. And that moves wonderfully well into the chess, and it’s very easy to see. When you understand the position you're in, you are able to take advantage of that position and then coordinate your pieces around the specific nuances, the pawn chain, which bishops are activated or good or bad, as they say. And then the tactical attacks, they jump out more easily to you because you've got the position correct, and now you're able to submit.
In boxing, there's a real simple idea of following this. Yeah, you can go to the head when you start, but if you look at the top fighters, the good guys, oh, they open up on the body first. A lot of guys go, oh, you want to soften that body up so he can't move. Okay, yeah, that's kind of a reason, the more practical reason for touching his body is his body is a wider target, he can't move, and if you can touch the body, then you're establishing your range for your other shots, which is something you have to do in every fight. You've got to establish the range.
Position before submission or, yeah, position before attack. Those similarities I see. So it's not an apples to apples type thing. It's not even apples to oranges. It’s, here's how fruit grows and it's nutritious, so here's how we're going to grow fruit. You might have some nuances, like you need it to be a little warmer for oranges, but still, it's all fruit, and when you understand that way to improve, you apply that to everything.
I don't know if you'll throw this in the show notes, but this is kind of relevant here. In the book that you worked on with me, one of the really important through-lines, and it's my life and it's a memoir, so it makes sense that it's there, is how learning how to fight helped me learn the math necessary to get a physics degree — and you need a lot of math. You take all the math classes under 400 for physics, and an extra one. I had to take something called mathematical methods in physics.
So if I never learned math, I would never be able to get a physics degree, and I failed all my math classes in high school. I didn't have any math confidence. Eventually when I went back to decide I was going to go to school, I realized all the degrees worth going after and spending this time and money involved math, so it's time to tackle this beast head on. But what I had on my side this time was I had spent all this time learning how to fight, so I understood what I was aiming to accomplish and what I was trying to do.
I went on to tutor kids a little later. I had a girl I was tutoring calculus, helping her get ready for the AP exam, and I said to her, I said, hey, you know, don't worry. I failed calculus like three times. You're in good hands. She looked at me, and I could see the look on her face. It was like, did my parents make a mistake here? What the hell do you mean you failed three times? And I'm like, no, I know what it is you're going to make a mistake in because I've made those mistakes, and part of math is not just solving the problem — ideally, you want to solve it the most efficient way possible. Math is abstract, and one of the things that trips people up is they add extra steps to get the same solution that they could get otherwise. They don't recognize connections and things like that. But I knew that if I kept learning the pattern of math, eventually, I would get more and more efficient.
When I first started fighting, I was absolutely terrible, and then I learned footwork and positioning my body with footwork. And it's amazing what you can do when you can hit someone while moving. That makes you a lot more efficient. And then with defense — this is my favorite place to really discuss this idea.
So one of the things that I think separates beginners from, we'll say, top level amateurs, with that middle ground being the intermediate guys, is you eventually learn that you can defend a punch in one of two ways. You can block it or parry it, or you can slip it by as little as possible. Both of those are kind of scary. It doesn't feel as safe as moving completely out the way or stepping off or stepping back. But if you move completely out the way, you're going to use up a lot of energy and you're going to use up a lot of time trying to get back in a position to hit. That's time where the other guy doesn't have to move.
You know, The Art of Learning by Josh Waitzkin? He talks about it as making the circle smaller. And that is what you're trying to do ultimately in every discipline. It's not just chess to boxing. It's chess to cooking, or chess to language acquisition, or foreign language acquisition. You're always trying to make the circle smaller. Because when you're efficient and economical, you just do more with less. It takes less energy. And you're more clear. You're more able to communicate, or express, or achieve what you're trying to do. But the goal is easier to reach. It's similar in a chess game or a boxing match.
KL: So it's like, do you understand the most efficient way to achieve your goal in this situation? Which in chess is generally checkmate. But you know, obviously, there doesn't have to be checkmate. It can be kind of that eventual, you know, the inevitable checkmate in an endgame. But it doesn't have to be the knockout, right? And it's similar in boxing, where it's like, yeah, it's great to like, knock a guy out. But that's not the only way to win a boxing match. The most efficient way to win a boxing match is not necessarily throw the biggest punches and move the most, expend the most energy.
EL: Yeah, I was playing a guy the other day on chess.com. We played a few games, we were chatting. And he had a choice of which piece to take with. And he took with the wrong piece. And I moved my knight into an outpost that he couldn't remove. He didn't have the bishop to attack that square, and he didn't have any more knights. I said, you made a mistake, and that knight is going to be the end of you. Like, that's a strategic idea. It's one of those things that a beginner player just doesn't think about. But if you can get a knight on the other person's board on a permanent outpost, yeah, that's a hard thing to overcome.
I don't have to do anything with it. I can sit right there and just play the rest of the game, let him do his Spider-Man thing, controlling eight squares, and I can go off and work my magic on the game. And that's one of those little things you think a beginner player doesn't think about. You can do a thing one of a few different ways, but the way you do it is really important.
KL: The position before submission thing really reminded me of the one game I've lost over the board to a player who was lower rated than me. It was really interesting because it was exactly that, where I was like, I'm a higher rated player. I have an attack. I have an attack on his king with my knight and my queen. I'm going to win. This is over. I've got the attack going. But I didn't have enough. I needed another piece. I didn't have the ammunition. And so I just kept moving those two pieces around, trying to find the killer blow. And meanwhile, all of his pieces are coming down the other side of the board, you know, getting into my territory. And I screwed up and lost the game. And it was such an interesting learning experience because it was like, and I would imagine this is true in boxing too, you might think you have an attack, but if you don't really have the goods, what you're really doing is just opening yourself up. That's what you're doing.
EL: There were a few games I went over with my coach, Eric, like that. And he would look and go, well, do you have enough? You don't have enough pieces for this attack. You know, there's more you need to do. He looked at the board and in a few seconds, it was like, you just don't have enough to do this yet. Meanwhile, I'm like, oh, I bet I can make this work somehow.
You have to make sure you have the proper weaponry for the fight you're going into on the chessboard, or the ring. If you don't have it, you have to make sure you have a plan. I think if I had the brain I have now for boxing and I went into it, I would spend a lot more time looking at my weaknesses.
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