In the first episode of the new funk podcast “Scambit: Chess, Hype and Millions”, host Yves Bellinghausen looks at the cheating scandal surrounding Hans Niemann, introduces chess world champion Magnus Carlsen and explains the Elo rating.
The Big Greek (chess analyst, scene connoisseur), Anna Cramling (twitch streamer, professional chess player), Jan Gustafsson (grandmaster, streamer, ex-second of Magnus Carlsen), Niklas Schenk (journalist, chess expert) and Rainer Polzin (player at Schachfreunde Berlin, then Schachfreunde Neukölln) appear as guests in the first episode and give insights into the world of chess.
Polzin steered Carlsen into the Bundesliga
Rainer Polzin, who met Magnus Carlsen as a child, says about the Norwegian: “When he sat at the board, how he played, how he beat his opponents, it was clear: This player will grow up and rightly so!”
Polzin then steered Carlsen into the Bundesliga. “At some point we also met to play water polo, and we chatted a bit and then we had contact details, and then he played for the chess friends in the Bundesliga for a season.”
Elo rating – what does it say?
Radio presenter Kathrin Fricke, aka “Coldmirror”, who explains the rating system in chess, knows what the Elo rating has to do with Harry Potter: “Elo rating is a number that indicates how good chess players are compared to other chess players. Let’s say Draco has 800 Elo and Hermione has 1000, so 200 more. If everything normal runs, Hermione wins three out of four games against Draco, purely by chance.“
In a total of four episodes, Yves Bellinghausen dives into the depths of the chess world with numerous guests: from cheating scandals to pressure to perform and the 2023 World Cup, it deals with the most important topics in the chess world.