Dylan Rittman
Appearances
Global News Podcast
The Happy Pod: The woman helping thousands of premature babies
Also... Playing against someone like him was like this really huge moment that I never thought would happen. It was almost like I didn't have time to be nervous because it was all happening so fast.
Global News Podcast
The Happy Pod: The woman helping thousands of premature babies
I was in Manhattan having breakfast with a couple of friends and all of a sudden my phone starts lighting up because our work slack was going crazy because of the Victor Wembenyama tweet. And so I'm a huge basketball fan. A lot of my co-workers are basketball fans and they knew I lived in New York. And it was like a 15-minute walk.
Global News Podcast
The Happy Pod: The woman helping thousands of premature babies
So I finished up my breakfast as quickly as I could, and I ran over to the park, thinking that I probably already missed it. Like, the weather was so bad. There's no way this famous basketball player is going to be sitting in the rain for that long. But lo and behold, he was still there playing. Someone that he was with was saying, hey, Victor, it's time for one more game.
Global News Podcast
The Happy Pod: The woman helping thousands of premature babies
Is anyone here good at chess? And there were probably 40 people there. So out of desperation, I just shouted out, I work at chess.com. And That really caught their attention because they were like, OK, you come sit down and play. And so pretty fortunate.
Global News Podcast
The Happy Pod: The woman helping thousands of premature babies
I was nervous. Much more excited than nervous, thankfully. Playing against someone like him was like this really huge moment that I never thought would happen. It was almost like I didn't have time to be nervous because it was all happening so fast. I did get a little nervous when I went to shake his hand. His hand was like, you see the pictures online, but then you see it in person.
Global News Podcast
The Happy Pod: The woman helping thousands of premature babies
And I felt like it was like a baby shaking a grown man's hand at that point in time. And I was like, OK, hopefully I don't make him mad because you could probably take me.
Global News Podcast
The Happy Pod: The woman helping thousands of premature babies
Oh, yeah, there were probably 30 or 40 people. And there was people, random people on the street had their phone out. There were a I didn't really know what was going to happen with all that footage. But after the game, it went like semi-viral. And that was like a weird experience for me as just like a very random person in New York.
Global News Podcast
The Happy Pod: The woman helping thousands of premature babies
It was a back and forth battle, but I was lucky to come out on top.
Global News Podcast
The Happy Pod: The woman helping thousands of premature babies
He was, it was a really hard fought game. And I was losing at one point that he was losing at one point and it was attacking and it was crazy. And I was just really lucky in the end to kind of get the win.
Global News Podcast
The Happy Pod: The woman helping thousands of premature babies
Better than talking to him after. He was actually very chatty during the game. We had a bit of banter back and forth. The New York City chess culture is very talkative and bantery. It was a lot of fun to kind of see him embrace that part of New York chess. You can be a little kid learning from your parents. You can be an older man.
Global News Podcast
The Happy Pod: The woman helping thousands of premature babies
You can be a random guy living in New York or a seven foot three international superstar. And we can all kind of sit across the board and play the same game at the same level.