very enjoyable

Delightful....I'm not a Cincinnati fan, but Votto is my favorite player since Ichiro retired. He had a really good interview towards the end of last year about his struggles and deciding whether to keep playing or not. Probably on Effectively Wild, or the Jayson Stark podcast.

EDIT: it was on Starkville with Jayson Stark and Doug Glanville. link here

Votto is just a good dude. There are guys like Votto or Wainwright that feel like they are impossible to dislike.

Votto was miked up in the field for a half-inning of the Reds Field of Dreams game last year.
I'd have watched the whole game if he was on for the whole game

The Reds star dishes about his own oral history

Quite the clickbait headline, eh?

Flexibility is key

This would be an interesting stat: Career WAR times peak chess rating. We need Sean to get that on bbref!

mlb.com had a story today on another star 1B - Pete Alonso - and how he, too, has learned a decent amount of Spanish so he can communicate better with more of his teammates.

he's an intriguing interview as well. a lummox with a heart of gold.

. . . a lummox with a heart of gold.

I sense a Neil Young influence there.

#7 Not that it really matters -- the point of the story is Votto's wide range of interests -- but Votto's not actually very good at chess. His reported rating would place him somewhere in the top 20 in most high schools.

It's just a fairly unusual thing for a professional athlete to be interested in.

but Votto's not actually very good at chess.

Your definition of not very good, and the majority of the world's definition of not very good is vastly different. This is akin to being a 190 or so bowler, or above average at any other past time or sport you take, he's not a championship caliber player of course, but generally speaking if he walks into a room, there is a good chance he's one or two of the best chess players in the room.

generally speaking if he walks into a room, there is a good chance he's one or two of the best chess players in the room.

I’d be truly impressed if he were the two best chess players in the room.

No. He's not a 190 bowler equivalent. The categories of chess players are broadly, World Champion, world class player, grandmaster, international master, senior master, master, expert, A class, B class, C Class, D class.

Votto is an E class player.

My dad was a 190 bowler. That made him one of the better bowlers in our small town. He generally matched up with the best bowler on the other team--and also often lost. It wasn't a huge deal; just a cool thing that he was pretty good at bowling. Which sounds pretty similar to where Votto is in chess.

I would imagine the vast majority of rooms do not contain at least 2 better than E rating chess players so my money is on Votto being one of the 2 best players in a typical room.

#15 Sure. But that's skewed by the fact that most people don't play chess. Votto's at a level that you reach if you show basic interest and take a few lessons from a decent teacher (I got there by finding a few good books -- same deal). He'll crush anybody who hasn't taken those few lessons.

Ron J is just angry that he hasn't been invited to play chess with Votto yet.

"Chess with Votto" should be a new YouTube show. "Saltines with Votto" too.

I like Saltines as well, just not solo…..they need to be accompanied by a bowl of Barbara Cunningham’s home-made chicken soup.
As to chess, most first graders could whip my behind,
Like most folks that you end up enjoying their company, Votto shows a high degree of curiosity.
Curiosity has proven to be a positive personality indicator when interacting with folks.
And speaking Spanish will prove to be invaluable in his line of work going forward.
Smart fellow.
Hopefully he can get his OPS back up to his career level as he finishes his active playing days.

Different rating systems but at my peak (late HS, early college), I think my rating sat around 1650. (I don't know how those two rating systems compare, it's not apples and oranges but you can't straight compare my rating to Votto's.) Like many such things, the gap between 1400 and 1650 is much smaller than the gap between 1650 and 1900. On a good day I could hold my own with an expert or maybe A class player through the middle before getting ground down in the end game. On the other hand, at my first US Open (a true open, you pay your money, you're in the tourney) I did somehow manage 5 points in 12 matches. (see below) I could also generally do OK in Chicago area tournaments (again around 1 point per 2 matches) and managed to go undefeated my senior year in high school (not a big brag especially since it was something like 5 wins and 5 draws).

So Votto's probably somewhere around there, maybe a bit lower. I'll guess he would have been the 3rd or 4th board player on our high school team (I was 2nd board senior year). And chess is one of those activties where you pretty quickly hit the wall where you need to put in some serious work or you will never get better. I'm sure your Gladwellian 10,000 hours at the chess board will pay off eventually but, in general, you don't really get better just by playing or at least not very quickly. For me, it stopped being "fun" fast.

Standard chess tournaments usually use what's called the Swiss system (or they used to, I assume still do). You rank everybody in the tournament (say 100 players), split it in half and the top player in the top half plays the top player in the bottom half -- so player #1 takes on player #51, etc. After the first round, all the 1-0 players are put in a pool, ranked, cut in half and top player in the top half takes on top player in the bottom half; same with all the players who drew in the first round; same with all the players who lost in the first round. At the end of that round, you've got a bunch of 2-0 players, some with 1-0-1 players, some 1-1-0, down to 0-2-0 players. Each of those is a pool, split in half .... So eventually you find your competitive level.

So in a big tourney like the US Open, a player like me might well start out 0-3 or 0-4 because they are playing much better players. But from that point, you'll start holding your own -- win and you'll play a somewhat tougher player but, like earlier, that's probably no worse than a 1400 player taking on a 1650.

I always found that structure interesting. In most US sports tourneys, the top-ranked team plays the bottom-ranked team (whether teams are sensibly ranked is a separate issue). Of course most US sports tourneys aren't open in any sense. In chess they seem to recognize that there's no point having a grand master play a newbie. There's really no point having a grand master play a 1900 player either but at least that 1900 player has been around a chess board and has a clue what the GM is up to. And they eventually find their level too and the player who wins on a 8-0-4 record (say) has earned it over those last 6-8 matches.

Bridge teams events (the big ones) use an even more extreme version of the Swiss where, after the first round onwards, you play the team either just above or below you in the standings (unless you've already played them) although the standings are based on a points system that measures how much you won by rather than win-loss record. Still if you are #1 after the first round you immediately play the current #2 team. To stay #1 you not only have to beat them, you have to beat them by a decent margin. The reward for that is to play the new #2 team. It's not uncommon for the winner of a bridge team tournament to be a good team that happened to lose their first match very badly and then get some easier competition for the next few rounds -- yes, it's often remarked that maybe we should do this intentionally but I don't know that anybody ever has. But it is true that you'd rather not enter the top of the standings until maybe 2-3 rounds to go -- but if you want to actually win it, eventually you'll have to beat some other top teams. But if you are the #1 team from start to finish, you have beaten the best teams in that tournament round after round after round.

So sorta like one of those holiday Hawaii college basketball tournaments where Sun starts with the battle to determine 7th and 8th places.

I’d be truly impressed if he were the two best chess players in the room.

Could you cut him in half and have two chess-baseball Hall of Famers?

You can get to 1400 on chess.com by not hanging your queen every other game. Now admittedly that's not as easy as it may sound but really anyone who decides they're interested in chess is capable of reaching that level.

It just means he likes chess. Which is fine.

On my chess app, I'm apparently playing at 1300 elo, class D, novice. Which is about right; I know some strategy, see the board well, but don't play often enough to improve.

I skimmed a few chess websites and they agree that 1400 is class C, average or intermediate or high intermediate, depending on where you look. That's about what you'd expect for someone who takes it seriously but has a demanding day job that he takes a little more seriously. Like he said, he's probably the best in MLB, but like Walt said, he'd be replacement level on the HS team.

Of all the btf moments in the history of the site, the last 10 or 12 comments are the btf-iest of them all

More than anything, I find a lot of joy out of learning. It’s not entirely this long-term goal. Learning begets more learning. I take Spanish lessons for an hour and a half, two hours three times a week with my instructor. I love it.

This reminds me of the SABR bio that I read on Reggie Smith recently. Davey Lopes was quoted as saying Smith seemed to learn something new every offseason. He became a pilot, learned several musical instruments, and learned cooking and photography, among other things. Another interesting guy and great player, who for some reason hasn't sniffed the HOF.

Like he said, he's probably the best in MLB, but like Walt said, he'd be replacement level on the HS team.

Well, chess teams in my day (in our league) were 5 players so 3rd-4th board would be average not replacement level. By the time I was a senior I'm not sure we even had a 6th player to use if one of us was sick. It wasn't clear if the program was going to continue (at least two of us were graduating).

Weird, I literally have no memory of who boards 3-5 were that year. I can vaguely remember the guys who were ahead of me in earlier years and me and the #1 board had been playing together for years.

#19 I've played in some pretty large tournaments (World Open, US Open, Canadian Open) as a relatively weak player tournament player. (Between class C and Class A)

They used some form of accelerated Swiss. Rather than split the field in half they quartered the field (conceptually giving top players an extra point for seeding purposes) The basic point is to avoid pairing B players against grandmasters in the early rounds. Instead you get experts against grandmasters in round 1. A different for of outclassed if you know what I mean. Avoids 2 utterly meaningless rounds at the start of the tournament.

This reminds me of the SABR bio that I read on Reggie Smith recently. Davey Lopes was quoted as saying Smith seemed to learn something new every offseason. He became a pilot, learned several musical instruments, and learned cooking and photography, among other things. Another interesting guy and great player, who for some reason hasn't sniffed the HOF.

There was a recent Poscast episode where Joe Posnanski and Mike Schur were opening packs of baseball cards, and one of the cards (I forget who, but it was like, Rick Mahler or someone) said that the player was a certified locksmith and an amateur magician, prompting much speculation on if the players just made up a biography to see if Topps would print it.

Reggie Smith is in the Hall of Merit - who needs that silly Cooperstown version anyway?

I've never played chess, but my best friend in high school loved to play. To get on the school chess team and play against other schools, there was a challenge system where you had to beat one of the incumbents, and you then took his/her place on the team. When we were sophomores, my friend John challenged the lowest ranked player on the team, who was a senior, and beat him, to take his place on the team. Which wouldn't mean much all these years later, except that the senior was Bill Gates...

"...an amateur magician, prompting much speculation on if the players just made up a biography to see if Topps would print it."

There was a player who played nine games for the 1942 Reds named Joe Abreu (that was his whole MLB career) who was nicknamed "The Magician". You'd think it was because he was a slick fielder, but it wasn't. The BR Bullpen says, "He came by his nickname the honest way: he was a real magician, knowing some 400 card tricks and being a member in good standing of the National Society of Magicians."

[

When we were sophomores, my friend John challenged the lowest ranked player on the team, who was a senior, and beat him, to take his place on the team. Which wouldn't mean much all these years later, except that the senior was Bill Gates...

When I was a HS senior, I finished 9th in the competition to make the varsity golf team (no JV, as you could imagine).

there were 9 spots on the team - 6 starters and 3 alternates. I beat a sophomore by about 3-4 shots for the last place.
even at age 17, I thought it would have made more sense for the coach to go with the sophomore - it would make him more likely to work on his game, and then be on the varsity the next two years (which he was anyway, as it turned out).

all these years later, the sophomore remains one of my best friends. he soon surpassed me in better golf scores - heh, which made him all the more tormented when I told him about my 190-yard hole-in-one when I was in my mid-30s (like most golfers, he still doesn't have one).

I think the coach committed beforehand to just taking the 9 best scorers, not thinking ahead to 'the big picture,' so he felt boxed in.
I enjoyed the season, even though I just played a series of meaningless 'exhibition matches' until the final contest of the season, when all 3 alternates "counted" - and I lost!
my twin brother moved up from the 6th slot all the way to 3rd by season's end, so that was fun.

pretty good scam for me: played 9 holes for free that didn't count in the Monday/Wednesday/Friday matches, and 'practice rounds' on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
other kids asked what golfers do in practice. well, it's not like football or basketball - you just play, lol

(compounded my audacity by taking 'Intro to Golf' as an elective a few months later when I started college. the instructor wanted to give me tips. I told him I shot low to mid-80s - was he better than that? he was not, so he moved on to other students.)

Comparing him to a high school chess player actually proves my original point, he's relatively good enough to hold his own with random people he meets. When I was in the Marines I played chess in a squadron of 240 people, this was a helicopter mechanic squadron so it's not like they were just empty headed soldiers. I routinely beat pretty much everyone in the squadron (My best friend who was in another squadron, was on his high school team and he dominated me) You are more likely to run into a person who played high school baseball than you are a person who played high school chess.

My dad was a 190 bowler. That made him one of the better bowlers in our small town. He generally matched up with the best bowler on the other team--and also often lost. It wasn't a huge deal; just a cool thing that he was pretty good at bowling. Which sounds pretty similar to where Votto is in chess.

Of course it really depends on when you were a 190 bowler, I'm a 200 average bowler and am massively inferior to my dad who was a 200 average bowler in 1970's. When he bowled, the travelling league (which is pretty much the step below being an actual pro for most people) would have 190 bowlers or even less on it then, nowadays, the travelling league has a minimum of around 215 average bowlers on it today. (maybe not in the league itself because the shot is intentionally harder, but they carry 215 in their preferred house--and I have friends on it who were in the pros for a time--not to mention the fact that they set the record for high game recognized by bowling in history almost exactly 3 years ago--that was just a side point, it literally popped up on my facebook feed a couple of days ago)

But of course my comment was about 190 bowlers today, these are guys who can generally compete with anyone in the house, but are not the best of the house. And they will generally beat any rando off the street even when having a bad day.


edit: I do think that one of mistakes of my analogy is that the random variation for a bowler is more than it is for a chess player, barring some type of substance abuse going on when they are playing. I mean pretty much every 190 average bowler has come within a ball of a perfect game if not actually having a few, and it's unlikely that an equivalent level chess player is ever going to beat a guy clearly superior to him.

#32 I actually saw one of the biggest upsets of all time. An expert beat a Grandmaster. The rating difference is such that if they played a 10 game match and the GM scored 9.5 his rating would drop. And it wasn't a simple blunder. The GM got an inferior position out of the opening and took some risks because to him a draw would have been about the same as a loss. And the expert was able to bring it home. (If it matters, Pal Benko was the GM. Ranked #6 in the US at the time. Past his prime but still in the top 100 in the world )

And hell, just the other day Magnus Carlsen missed a mate and any number of world class players have famous blunders. No one game tells you that much. Even over the course of a tournament you can get some pretty unexpected results.

Below expert level anybody's capable of just hanging a queen.

#32 I actually saw one of the biggest upsets of all time. An expert beat a Grandmaster. The rating difference is such that if they played a 10 game match and the GM scored 9.5 his rating would drop. And it wasn't a simple blunder. The GM got an inferior position out of the opening and took some risks because to him a draw would have been about the same as a loss. And the expert was able to bring it home. (If it matters, Pal Benko was the GM. Ranked #6 in the US at the time. Past his prime but still in the top 100 in the world )

And hell, just the other day Magnus Carlsen missed a mate and any number of world class players have famous blunders. No one game tells you that much. Even over the course of a tournament you can get some pretty unexpected results.

Below expert level anybody's capable of just hanging a queen.

I'm not saying that it can't happen, but that the level of variance is much smaller with chess than bowling, (same with baseball vs basketball/football where the better team has a higher chance) I routinely bowl against a guy who was a pro bowler and still can beat him around 10-20% of the time. Meanwhile I cannot beat my buddy who played at a high school level of chess more than 1-2% of the time. Mind you, I think in chess terms I'm probably closer to a 160 bowler than a 190 bowler so my skill level is lacking more there. At the same time, even that low of a level of skill, I can walk into a room with 20-30 rando's in it, and know that there might at best be two people in the room who can routinely beat me in chess. (If I had to guess, my rating would be around 800 or so based upon the few games I have played that have tried to estimate ratings)

The big differences between chess and bowling are twofold:

One....you're competing directly against each other in chess.

Two....there is not much random about chess played seriously. You either have a pretty good idea what the other guy is playing and pick a good counter to it, or you don't. (I say this as someone who has been flattened a more than few times by high-end players with well over 2000 ELOs, and has gotten draws against them sometimes.....usually when I guessed what their plan was and remembered and played the best counter(s) correctly.

I'm not bad at chess. I can probably beat most people randomly wandering around even without playing a modern standard opening. Most randoms will fail to stop even older stuff like fianchettos and the like and fold after you've taken a rook or two easily. Not everything is about crushing their queen, which is actually pretty well protected when undeveloped compared to those rooks. One wrong pawn move and back-row rooks can be taken with no counter play.

I love that Votto is pretty good at chess. I don't think he'll ever get massively better though as it sounds like he's going to quite sensibly stick around in MLB and teach hitting, something at which he's many many standard deviations better than typical(rather than playing chess where perhaps he's 1-2 standard deviations better than usual). The spanish is impressive for sure...and work relevant to him.

Knowing Votto's sense of humor it's also possible he is intentionally trolling those in the know with his "I'm a 1400 on chess.com" flex.

Comparing him to a high school chess player actually proves my original point, he's relatively good enough to hold his own with random people he meets.

I think that's the point we were nearly all making -- he's around an average high school chess team player, maybe a bit worse. That kid would be, say, in at least the top 5% of players in his high school -- where at least 90% don't play at all so he's really in the top half of the 10-20 kids who actually try to play the game. So sure, much like the average HS baseball player is sub-sub-sub-sub-replacement level for MLB, Votto would get his clock cleaned most of the time at the local chess club and I don't recommend he go down to the park and play speed chess for money. He says so himself when he says "Once you get to 1,500, you can probably play some over-the-board tournaments." He's not talking about playing international over-the-board tournaments, he's talking about finishing close to last in the Cincy Open or even smaller tournament but not embarrassing himself.

Of course that's another fundamental difference between chess and other mind games vs sports -- physically maturing doesn't really matter. Your scrawny average HS player sometimes turns into a guy the size and speed of Dave Winfield. Or the failed minor-league infielder has a 95-MPH arm. That doesn't happen with the brain. I'm sure there's a Hakeem Olajuwon of chess somewhere nobody's looking for them, but even if they are found, it's gonna take a lot longer than 3-4 years of top-level training to turn them into a grandmaster I would think.

EDIT: But imagine you are 14-yo Walt, very mediocre chess player and baseball fan and at some random tourney around the last round you get to play Joey Votto because you are both 1-3-1.

#27: I'm only a very occasional Pozcast listener, but a regular Substack reader, so I saw the aftermath of that - it was Moose Haas's 1987 Topps card. Joe, having started out as an actual journalist, ran the story down:

But, it turns out: It’s all true.

He was born Bryan Haas, but was given the nickname “Moose” practically the day he was born. His father, Bud Haas, kept saying he would grow up to be as big as a moose. Bud Haas was a police officer in Baltimore. It was Bud who taught Moose how to be a locksmith. Haas said he used the skill to help neighbors who got locked out of their houses.

So that’s one truth.

It’s also true that he was an amateur magician; he began tinkering around with magic around 1980 to “relieve the tedium of the road.” In 1983, after he got a complete game victory over Detroit despite giving up home runs to Chet Lemon and Johnny Grubb, he was asked what kind of magic he performed. Card magic? Coin magic? Rope magic? “Well,” he said, “I can make a baseball disappear.”

And I guess he really did get a first-degree black belt in Tae Kwon Do.

Joe doesn't mention this, but the locksmith/magician facts also appear on his 1983 Fleer card, and his 1984 Fleer mentions the Taekwondo black belt.

#37 Depends. He'd likely score poorly in a class D event. And I've never heard of an event that went lower (beyond unrated of course). Local chess clubs often have tournament restricted to no higher than C class players or the like. A relatively painless introduction to tournament play.

Also, you need to be aware that there's significant rating inflation online (There's been rating inflation issues for as long as there have been ratings but it's particularly bad at places like Chess.com). Levy Rozman (Gotham Chess) for instance is rated over 2700 on chess.com which would make him a real threat to qualify for the Candidates if that was his actual over the board strength. He's actually "only" 2322. And you'll see that with everybody who plays both forms. I think Nakamura and Carlsen are around 3300 on Chess.com. There's never been a 2900 ELO over the board)

There was an adult chess prodigy in the mid to late 1920s. (Sultan Khan). It's an interesting 5 year career. He'd have been at least a strong IM if the title existed then. But he grew up playing Indian Chess before being introduced to the version we're familiar with. (3 British Championships in 4 attempts. Some high places in strong tournaments)

In that sense it's easy to imagine some cricketers (Chris Gayle's name has come up) who likely could have moved to baseball. Gayle pretty much bats like he's playing baseball (and he's a big, athletic guy). Most cricketers likely couldn't move to the top level but an elite cricketer could probably improve an A team with a little transition time and some might actually become useful players (though of course we'd never find out. No incentive for them to try)

you need to be aware that there's significant rating inflation online

the fabled Pebble Beach Pro-Am was won this year by the team of Aaron Rodgers, and there were widespread claims that he "inflated" his handicap - including public comments by Tour player Keith Mitchell, who with Josh Allen finished second - to help lower his team's score. (for non-golfers, if a player says he's an 18 handicap then he "gets a stroke" on each hole. so any bogeys become pars on the card, and the pars become birdies.)

George Brett won the pro-am in the late 1980s with a supposed 17 handicap - and was never invited back. he said he had never played often enough on one course to establish an official handicap, and after playing some holes with pro Fred Couples, said he simply listed the handicap that Couples recommended to him.

Tom Brady about 20 years ago claimed a 10 handicap, yet he outscored his PGA Tour pro partner.

Actor Andy Garcia, once a supposed 18 handicap - aka "bogey golfer" - shot an even-par 36 on one 9-hole stretch the year that he won. he was allowed back - as a 10 - and I'm not sure he ever contended again.

the colorful - and dreaded - phrase for such fellows is "sandbagger."

#40 Yeah rating issues in a different direction. Happens in lots of settings. And I know of players who carefully knock their rating down before big chess tournaments. If you're actually an expert and lose a games in a club tournament before a big tournament you can be eligible for the Class A prize.

That kind of thing can happen any time there's some kind of rating system that considers everything but where the player only cares about certain games or events -- and the rating determines a handicap or which prize you're eligible for.

If there's an incentive to game a rating system people will.