The following article is an excerpt from a large article titled Best Chess Podcasts: The Ultimate Guide To Chess Podcasts in 2022. Despite the “Review” in the title, it is primarily a subjective look at the landscape of chess podcasting and, as such, isn’t “objective” by any means. In this post/series of posts, I will share my impressions about different chess podcasts.

About the podcast

As already mentioned in the Introduction, The Perpetual Chess Podcasts is one of the oldest, most respected, and most notable Chess Podcasts out there. Hosted by the National Master Ben Johnson and founded in 2016, the podcast features guests from all spheres of the chess world – chess educators, content creators, authors, top players, and adult improvers.

Whether you want to listen to the most recent books, chess improvement tips, stories from chess folklore, chess history, or anything else chess related, the Perpetual Chess Podcast is a place for you. It is hard to imagine you will not find something that interests you in one of almost 300 episodes released up to this date. ¹

My impressions of the podcast

I first heard about the Perpetual Chess Podcast somewhere in 2017/2018. As mentioned earlier, back in the day chess podcasting was still a big niche and there weren’t many options available. However many people in the chess circles talked about Ben Johnson’s podcast and it unanimously received very high praise, so it was only natural to give it a try. Almost immediately after I listened to the first episode I was immediately hooked and my love for the podcast has persisted ever since.

What makes Perpetual Chess Podcast so special for me? I believe it is a combination of two factors – Ben Johnson’s amazing personality, preparation, and „podcast hosting“ skills and his inclination to invite a very diverse variety of guests with different backgrounds, life stories, and relationships to our game.

Let’s start with the former. I think Ben Johnson is by far the best host of a chess podcast ² out there due several reasons. First of all – given that he is a very accomplished chess player and a former chess teacher, he is very immersed in the chess world and very knowledgable about the past and current chess events, players and personalities.

By the sheer amount of references, name drops, and other conversational titbits in every episode it is very obvious he is very knowledgable about the chess world. It is also obvious he prepares very thoroughly and that he tries to stay on the eve of the chess news every week – as demonstrated by his most recent endeavor titled Perpetual Chess Linkfest.

And even though I don’t think having that level of knowledge is required in order to be a host of a chess podcast, in my book it definitely helps and adds to the quality of the podcast and the overall experience. ³

It is also very obvious that Ben is extremely enthusiastic and genuine when it comes to his passion for the game and the chess world. It is absolutely adorable ⁴ how excited and starstruck he gets whenever he hosts a top chess player such as Kramnik, Gelfand, Ivanchuk, or Anand. This passion is radiating and also makes the listener very interested in the topic and excited about chess, as well!

But what is even more admirable is that this passion is not present ONLY when a top player joins the podcast. Ben has this uncanny ability to show genuine interest in a guest no matter what their name or surname ⁵ is. Whether we are talking about a relatively unknown chess educator, ambitious adult improver, or a famous chess celebrity, Ben’s level of engagement remains the same and makes even „less notable“ episodes very much worth listening.

Actually, I would say the fact that Ben invites a wide variety of guests is precisely what makes this podcast special, as one gets the opportunity to hear some very unique and captivating stories that usually don’t make it to the mainstream chess media. ⁶ The most vivid example I have is the interview with a convicted felon Tony Ballard which featured a deep and emotional conversation about how Tony ended up in prison, how he coped with such an unfortunate turn of events and how chess had a positive effect on his entire life.

As a matter of fact, this interview with Tony is arguably the best example of Ben’s strengths as a podcast host. Even though he is dealing with a topic as delicate as a murder attempt, Ben doesn’t hesitate from diving deeper into it and asking all the right questions, while doing so in an extremely warm and empathetic manner. It is true that Tony’s openness in regard to that matter helped tremendously, but I am not 100% sure if the conversation would have been as enticing and deep if it happened on any other podcast than Ben’s.

When you also take into consideration that he has been doing this job longer than anyone else in the business and fine-tuning skillset for several years, you can understand why I constantly find myself going back to Ben’s Podcast, despite the abundance of options that appeared on the scene in the last few years.

As a matter of fact, whenever I listen to an episode of Ben’s Podcast after not listening to it for a while, I find myself going back and thinking:

„Well, there may be many chess podcasts out there, but Ben is still the king.“

Long story short, there is a reason why Perpetual Chess Podcast is the longest-standing and the most successful chess podcast out there. If I wasn’t such a big lover of cynicism, snarky humour, and mutual mockery provided by the Chicken Chess Podcast, I would have put it on the top of my list.

But if you are searching for something a bit more moderate and serious, yet still extremely informative, insightful, and entertaining, I can wholeheartedly recommend The Perpetual Chess Podcast.

Side note: You might think I am subjective since I have interacted with Ben personally several times since I like him as a person as well since I interviewed him for the blog, and since I also appeared in one of the episodes of the podcast myself. There might be some truth to this as biases are impossible to completely eliminate, but I would nevertheless urge you to give this podcast a try if you haven’t already.

Notable episodes of the podcast

For a podcast with such a long history and such a renowned list of interesting guests, it is almost impossible to come up with a list of notable episodes without omitting an important one. But from the top of my head, in no particular order:

• The very first episode featuring IM Greg Shahade which sounds more like two friends wondering what the hell they are doing than a podcast episode. Absolute gold!
• Episode nr. 165 with Indian Legend and former World Champion Viswanathan Anand. I may be wrong, but I believe it was one of the first episodes with a guest of SUCH a caliber.
• Episode nr. 177 with GM Peter Heine Nilsen, the coach/second of GM Magnus Carlsen and former coach/second of GM Viswanathan Anand, in which he takes us through the behind-the-scenes of the 2010 World Chess Championship match against Veselin Topalov
• Episode nr. 200 with former World Chess Championship Challenger GM Boris Gelfand. I personally found Boris extremely captivating to listen to and absolutely love his insights and thoughts on everything chess and non-chess related.
• Episode nr. 155 with Elizabeth Spiegel, a legendary chess educator featured in the movie Brooklyn Castle.
• The aforementioned episode nr. 289 with Tony Ballard
• Episode nr.294 with Fabiano Caruana featuring his thoughts on the recently concluded Candidates Tournament and the World Championship Cycle, launched before Caruana’s own podcast C-Squared Podcast was a thing

1. I am writing this lines on 16th of September
2. From the purely „technical“ perspective
3. Yeah yeah, I know, I am a chess elitist
4. No homo
5. or rating
6. Although some people have complained about this variety in the past – most notably about the fact that Ben seemingly invites a lot of American authors/educators/personalities. While there might be some truth to this, I do want to point out that there isn’t a podcast in the world where EVERY guest will be equally interesting to everybody. I think that the pluses of having a diverse guestlist nevertheless outweigh the minuses