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Subject: The John Henry story we all missed...

Author: Dann Corbit

Date: 17:55:25 02/18/00

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On February 18, 2000 at 20:11:01, Amir Ban wrote:
[snip]
>What is consistent is that everyone in Bermuda thought Adams was going through
>an ordeal, and this goes to explain why Mig made this commitment, and why KC
>management insisted on giving him the forfeit.

Well, of course he was.  The ordeal was caused by the excellent play of DJ!
;-)

The decision to allow a powerful computer opponent is a puzzling one to me, but
allow it they did, and also charged [I assume] and entry fee which should be
promptly refunded.

The sad part is, we all missed out on a John Henry story.  Could Adams have
actually won?  Junior was a bit short on time.  What if it had gone down to the
wire and we had drama with the second game as well?  Or what if Kasparov had
been forced to face Junior at G/60 [I have heard conflicting reports about the
time control.  It was G/60 wasn't it?]

From the Legend of John Henry:
"John Henry said to the Captain,
'A man ain't nothing but a man
But before I let that steam drill drive me down
I'll die with this hammer in my hand.'"

We could have seen a mighty duel:
"Michael Adams -- he said to the TD,
'A man ain't nothing but a man
But before I let Deep Junior bust my chops
I'll die with this chess clock in my hand.'"

We are once again at a historic threshold -- the point where a machine can do a
task about as well as the best human alive [and at G/60 it's anyone's contest].
But instead of the epic battle we all anticipated, someone, somehow, hid behind
a trumped up rule and so [in reality] the _men_ ran away with their tails tucked
between their legs.

IMO-YMMV.
[snip]



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