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Subject: Re: The details of a psychowar (DB team vs Kasparov in the NY Times)

Author: Andrew Williams

Date: 12:42:14 05/15/00

Go up one level in this thread


On May 15, 2000 at 14:30:29, Hans Gerber wrote:

>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.

PARDON???? Is this scientifically proven or are you just making it up?


Andrew

>
>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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