Author: Hans Gerber
Date: 11:30:29 05/15/00
Go up one level in this thread
On May 15, 2000 at 07:29:50, Andrew Williams wrote: >I don't understand this point. Permit me to be a bit facetious, but surely >by this argument I could claim to be World Champion on the grounds that when >I lost to Polgar, Kramnik, Kasparov etc, I was intimidated by the fact that >I couldn't understand why I kept losing. And when I asked them how they kept >beating me they declined to answer. Surely I am the same player whether or >not I am intimidated? If Kasparov was confused and intimidated, I think it >was because he was ill-prepared for the match. And since he'd signed a >contract accepting the conditions of the match, I would say that that >was his own fault. I say this as a person who was hoping he would win. > > >Andrew Williams Two aspects. Sure, it is obvious that Kasparov isn't innocent. He had all the possibilities to make a better contract. He was quite naive. Point taken. But then, I come back to the standards of science. Obviously I couldn't make clear what that means. You know the standards don't become weaker or less exact only because someone like Kasparov didn't pay enough attention to preparation, contract and so on. These standards must be respected even if a Kasparov would have played with no contract at all. You know that is the worldwide accepted ethos of science. You can't set under drugs your individual you want to examin, if you claim to experiment how he will play against your machine. With the intention to see how the machine's strength has improved. Because in that case you examin the influence of drugs on your individual. In the case of our event in 1997 the DB team (probably under the order of IBM) created a psychowar against Kasparov just by denying the prints and going into the massmedia like the NY Times. End of the story, Kasparov felt insulted, became upset, couldn't solve the situation mentally and he played below his abilities. IBM won. In the not so far future this would have happened anyway. But in 1997 under normal conditions Kasparov couldn't lose. Still belonging to that aspect you seem to argue that Kasparov himself was the one who allowed that they made him upset. Also here point taken. It's well known that we have many GMs who would master such situations with much more self-control. But wait a moment, this point is returned to sender. Again the standards of science. By all means Hsu et al should have prevented such a situation in the case of Kasparov. Because they - as scientists - will always be remembered of having humiliated their invited human just to "win" the match. In the case of Kasparov you can take that word "humiliated" for granted. But as you can see, he came back and plays better chess than before. Let's see what Hsu will achieve in future...
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