Chess


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Aiming For the pinnacle
Brain Vs Bytes

Kramnik's Feat

Vishwanathan Anand

Brain Vs Bytes

As the Garry Kasparov-Deep Blue rematch unfolds, I am reminded of an old Russian joke about a man playing chess on the beach with his dog. Soon an amazed crowd gathered, an said: "How remarkable!" The man angrily protested. "What's so remarkable?" I am leading three game to one!"

Until a few years ago, this joke could have been told about chess-playing computers. Computers, who could calculate very accurately, were hopelessly dogmatic. They stuck rigidly to the relative values of the pieces and went after every piece they could find. Chess, however, is not bean-counting. Every chess player not also learns that they are only to guide, not govern. Computers were totally unable to deal with the variables, let alone conceive a strategic plan.

A human rarely selects a move on the basis of death-defying calculation. Seeing 10 moves ahead does occur from time to time, but only in special situations. Humans hardly ever look at every move in a position. If a position contains, say 30 moves, a human would consider about five or six. This is a highly efficient method, since it is most likely that other moves are inferior. However, this efficiency comes at a price. Just as computers blindly stick to their rules, humans often overlook many exceptions to the rule. Moves that don't conform to known patterns are often ignored.

The opening is another crucial area of difference. Centuries of chess playing have honed the opening and a large body of theory has developed. Chess players study as much theory as they can and spend years understanding its nuances. At the opening point of a game, the number of possible moves is so high that mere calculating ability and brute force of the computers are mostly rendered useless.

Humans are also highly inconsistent creatures. They can be affected by breakfast, bad sleep, fear, nervousness, while computers are impervious to everything but the electricity. Garry Kasparov is famous for making condescending remarks in order to psychologically intimidate his opponent. Deep blue tipping the scales at 1.4 tonnes to Garry's 176 lbs probably wouldn't be intimidated.

Technology eventually brought out the good of the machines. In 1986, the first chess database was born. Soon chess players were lugging portable computers to every tournament. Chess databases of over 300,000 top-level games appeared classified according to players, openings, endgames, pawn structures etc. It wasn't long after that chess programmes were bundled with your basic database package. The chess world had entered the computer era.

Larger hard-disks meant that thy could store even the largest databases as opening trees (variations and sub-variations). Every successive chip meant that the machines could calculate more variations. They could now play like humans in the first part of the game!! The programmes had also been tweaked to stop following rules blindly. And then came CD-ROMS which helped computers play certain endgames perfectly. In the late '80s and early '90s, computers started to defeat strong players with alarming frequency.

The event that started alarm bells ringing was the Intel Blitz challenge at Munich in May 1994. A programme called Fritz, running on a 120-Pentium, participated along with most of the world's leading grand masters. Admittedly these were 10-minute games. Still, no one expected Fritz to beat Garry Kasparov, myself, Vladimir Kramnik and Boris Gelfand among others. Garry proceeded (and I think most others, chastened and humbler, would have done it!) to destroy the machine in a subsequent six-game match.

Intel then decided to repeat the experiment with a programmed called Genius on a Pentium 2090 in a rapid (25 minutes per player) event. Once again, the machine performed exceedingly well. It brushed aside Garry with ease and then destroyed Predrag Nikolic to reach the semi-finals against me.

The first game I tempted the computer with a pawn. The subsequent danger to its king was beyond its calculating ability (also called its horizon and it soon crumbled. Int he second game, I aimed for a dull position where careful play should have led to a draw, but a misguided winning attempt would be fatal. the machine duly obliged. The final result 2:0!

The event that spurred worldwide interest in this field was the Garry Deep Blue match held in early 1996. This was not a programme running on a PC, but a mainframe that could calculate millions of positions per second. The computer won the first game. Along came computer experts to declare that computers would soon be unbeatable, that chess would be analysed to death and so on. The hype was short-lived. Garry quickly equalised by winning the next game and went on to win the match.

The public perception of the strength of computers is skewed by the fact that humans often play badly against machines. If you know how to play against a machine, it is often easy to defeat them. Humans spend most of their lives preparing to play other humans and are unable to adjust to the specific style necessary to play computers. This is changing.

At the annual AEGON Man vs. Machine event in Amsterdam, a number of computers are paired daily against an equal number of humans of all strengths. The machines have won the event for the last two years, but only with cumulative scores. The highest individual scorers are always humans. This year Timman and I were invited to play simultaneously against six programmes on the opening day of AEGON. Garry is reported to have said," They are out of their minds!" when he heard that we accepted the challenge. I made some mental notes-to play with as little risk as possible till I had some idea in which boards I could expect to win and then draw the other games. This worked perfectly - I won the match 4:2.

Nowadays almost all top players use computers. They first analyse a given position and then use a com0puter to check their analysis. Since their styles are so radically different, this approach produces some really profound analyses. Integrating the computer into the way we study chess will advance knowledge of chess. It is not a question of who is better or more intelligent. As Kraminik beautifully puts it: "You don't see mathematicians competing with a calculator to see who is faster at dividing 389 by 15. Only we do this !!" Cooperation is a two-way street. Garry prepared for his match against Deep Blue by playing against commercial programmes, while Deep Blue prepared by having two Grand Masters clean up its opening repertoire that the programmers constructed for it!

Perhaps we are not different after all. I remarked to someone after my match in London: "How silly it is to play chess against something that doesn't even play chess, but simply moves electrons!" Pat came his reply: 'And what do you think we do?"

Vishwanathan Anand, the second highest rated chess player in the world, wrote this piece while the year's Kasparov-Deep Blue re-match was still in progress.

Courtesy The India Today

Kramnik feat

Completing a hat-trick of victories in the Chess Meeting '97 at Dortmund, Russia's Vladimir Kramnik accomplished an unparalleled feat in super category chess. The ease with which he won the tourney showed his superiority.

He was the only undefeated player in this category 19 field. Kramnik won the title with a full point separating him and the second placed Viswanathan Anand. The tournament was part of the 25the edition of the Dortmund Chess Days festival and was held between July 3-13. As usual, it was a 10-player round robin. Sparkassen, a bank was the major sponsors of the 800,000 DM (Rs.1.72 Crores) budget tournament.

At the start, it was expected to be a keen race for the title between Anand and Kramnik. But the Indian fell back in the scoring, after he missed a winning position against Germany's Robert Huebner in the fourth round. Kramnik with a short draw against England's Nigel Short in the last round, made it a memorable championship.

Kramnik started powerfully in the championship. His four victories and five draws were enough to help him win the tournament.

Coming fresh from a big rapid chess success in Frankfurt, Anand started wonderfully well by Smasing Ivanchuk. He recorded another victory over Yusupov in the next. But missed a full point over Huebner and then played a hard game against Gelfand. Thereafter, a defeat to Topalov proved too costly. He pulled back beating Short but then Kramnik had stretched his lead too far. Anand used a new repertoire, the Sicilian Dragon and we might see him use this new weapon quite often in the near future. His former second GM Alex Sherzer said he mailed Anand some analysis and the result of his usage of this opening might be because of that. In the game, he only used it to surprise Judit and a draw was the outcome. The final round of Karpov-Anand game was also a theoretical encounter, with both trying to outwit each other' preparation. It was a draw and Anand took a well deserved second place. Had he improved his performance in the middle, Anand could have won the title. Nevertheless, Anand played well in the championship.

But for the failure against Kramnik and Anand, Ivanchuk's performance was notable. He showed that he had recovered from the lean period which started from the Las Palmas category tournament last year.

Topalov was humbled by Judit Polgar, but he recovered late in the tournament with a nice victory over Anand and a hard-fought marathon victory over Yusupov in the last round. Figuring in an unusually high quotient of drawn games, Topalov finished close to his expected score. This should be a good score for someone who has been repeatedly failing in Germany.

Judit Polgar's problems against Kramnik and Anand still persist. After trouncing Topalov and Short, she managed with a draw against Anand but lost to Kramnik. Two defeats and two victories comprised her four decisive games. Unless she learns to tackle these players, she might not be able to move higher. Her victory against Short earned her the best game's prize.

Gelfand is a friendly gentlemen in the chess circle, well liked by all those who know him. But his eight draws in the championship did not do him good. He lost one game to Ivanchuk and drew the rest of the games. Gelfand finished with four points for the sixth place.

FIDE world champion Anatoly Karpov of Russia was extensively used as an advertisement in the tournament, but he failed to impress. He has not recovered since Tilburg 1996 and his scoring continued to suffer. Karpov took time to recover from the blow, given by Kramnik in the opener. His second defeat to Short blew his chances. He played some good defensive chess against Ivanchuk to share points. Appearing flabby, Karpov did not resemble to be a sportsman. Post-game long walks and table tennis were his main hobbies. Perhaps if he doesn't find enough inspiration to prepare, we might not see the zestful Karpov again. Playing with very few surprises. Karpov had his second IM Podgayets all along. He beat Yusupov and lost two games and shared the sixth place.

Coming from a classic performance in Novgorod, Short played entertaining chess as usual. His victory over Karpov gave him immense satisfaction. He had earlier beaten his former second Huebner by playing the rarely used Evan's gambit. Playing more decisive games he gave life to the tournament on many occasions. "The problem was I stated to think about this game with Karpov too early and lost the other one," Short said about his defeat to Ivanchuk. He tied for the sixth to eighth places with four points.

The lowest rated players of the event was Robert Huebner of Germany. He escaped finishing last by drawing seven games and losing two. Besides Gelfand, he was the only other player not to have won a game.

Arthur Yusupov also had a bad tournament. He managed to defeat Judit Polgar in an ending where winning chances for both sides looked dim.

Four defeats put this Munich-based player in the last place. His placing in the world ranking is slipping.

The arbiters, Alexander Bach and GM Lothar Schmidt, had less work do in the championship. At the start of play, there was a sad news for chess lovers. The arbiters announced the death of Miguel najdorf. The sponsors were impressed by the large turn out of people and the organisers announced the championship will go on next year as well.

"It was not an interesting tournament with respect to the games," said IM Silvio Danailov, the Bulgarian trainer of Topalov. perhaps the higher category this time saw too many draws. Round five was worse, all the games were drawn, but it didn't dampen ticket sales. The beautiful auditorium accommodates 1200 spectators and atleast three days saw the house full with many additional numbers watching. It was a good site to watch so many enthusiasts clogging the venues each day shelling 14 DM. GMs Eric Lobron and Helmut Pfleger entertained them with good German commentary.

To popularise the event locally, the organisers opted for a huge 1200-seat auditorium. It was a great success. The game was also on the Internet. But they didn't use the best demonstration board services as used by organisers in Spain. It was one of the most difficult events to cover for journalists who were given the game score long after they were played without a single flash bulletin as done in other venues. Overall, the organisers need a pat for successfully conduct of the tournament. They kept it going for 25 years and will continue next year as well. Together with this event, they organised two Open tournaments and two separate simultaneous displays by Yusupov and Huebner on the lone free day.

Aiming for the pinnacle

At the age of eight Abhijit Kunte was a cricket fanatic. One Saturday, when he was all set to play a match for his team, his parents told him that he must accompany his elder sister Mrunalini to her chess class. That was a like a bombshell for the eight-year-old. Remonstrating and crying, he was hauled off to Phadke's Chess Club where Pune's famed chess trainer gave lessons.

That was the start of Abhijit Kunte's chess career. Later, after graduating into a stronger player he attended the Vaidya Chess Institute run by International Master (IM) Arun Vaidya.

Born on March 3, 1977 at Pune, Abhijit and Mrunalini learnt the moves from their elder sister. Abhijit is the youngest in their family. After a one year stint with Phadke, Kunte won the third prize in the Maharashtra State Under-13 championship at Sangli in 1986. His very first National title was the Under-12 event held at IIT, Chennai, in 1988. The next year he retained the crown at Udhagamandalam. He also won the National U-14 title twice in 1990 at Pollachi and in 1991 at Cannanore. After winning the National sub-junior (U-15) at Calicut in 1993 and Thrissur 1997.

Since these National championships were selection tournaments for the corresponding World and Asian championships, Kunte has participated in several events all over the world. In early 1996, Kunte got his first IM norm from the Goodricke International at Calcutta. It was in 1997 that he achieved his most striking successes. He surprisingly won the National 'A' championship at Bhilai to get his second and final IM norm. During the course of this year's Asian junior he read press reports that his IM title was confirmed by the FIDE. By then he had streaked to a 7/7 with his closest rivals two points behind and his eyes were set on the Grandmaster (GM) norm which is given as a bonus to players winning a continental junior chess championship without a tie with anybody. He eventually won with a score of 9.5 points in a 11-round Swiss with his closest rivals still two points behind.

Abhijit, who is a brilliant student, completed his B.Com from Briham Maharashtra College of Commerce and obtained a first class with distinction. He is now dong a diploma course in Business Management. He is a trainee sportsman with Indian Oil Corporation who gave him a monthly scholarship of Rs . 4,750, besides other perks.

Kunte's father, Prakash Kunt, and mother both work for the Pune University. The eldest daughter Vibhavri was the one who taught her siblings the moves. For Mrunalini, 1996 was a great year as she became the National woman champion and also won an International Woman Master norm in the Yerevan Chess Olympiad. A norm in an Olympiad is a title itself.

Abhijit said that he is basically lazy and does not like to study chess theory. But when Mrunalini asked him to help her with the study of theory, he went through with it and improved in the bargain. Family support has counted a lot in Abhijit's rise in the chess world.

His aim now is to get his GM title. He will be playing in the GM tournament to be organised in Calicut next month and then play in two strong International Opens in Spain in early 1998.

Courtesy The Sportstar