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Subject: Re: I don't believe this!

Author: Joe McCarro

Date: 19:46:44 08/07/02

Go up one level in this thread


On August 07, 2002 at 17:15:44, Uri Blass wrote:

>On August 07, 2002 at 16:11:55, Joe McCarro wrote:
>
>>On August 07, 2002 at 08:43:11, José Antônio Fabiano Mendes wrote:
>>
>>>On August 07, 2002 at 08:01:27, Jonas Cohonas wrote:
>>>
>>>>On August 07, 2002 at 07:25:51, Jouni Uski wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>Is there a hacker at site?????
>>>>>
>>>>>Jouni
>>>>
>>>>Well have a look at chessbase:
>>>>http://www.chessbase.com/columns/column.asp?pid=145
>>>>
>>>>Jonas
>>>                           An interesting quote:
>>>
>>> "When I talked to him about the event, Kasparov repeatedly emphasized
>>>  that unlike the second Deep Blue match, science will be served in
>>>  Jerusalem. IBM's secretive behavior frustrated the computer and chess
>>>  communities and fueled accusations of everything from unsportsmanlike behavior
>>>  to outright cheating and the controversies rage on even five years later.
>>>While both sides clearly want to win this match, FIDE would like to make this
>>>an annual event that will promote the science behind the moves as well. The
>>>presence of computer chess guru and gadfly David Levy will no doubt assist in
>>>this endeavor."
>>
>>That was an unfortunate comment.  IBM decides to spend millions on computer
>>chess research, and millions for a prize fund and marketing of the chess match
>>and their thanks is to be called cheaters!  Gee why doesn't anyone want to get
>>involved sponsoring chess?
>
>IBM was never interested in computer chess research.

IBM is a publicly held company that is obligated to its shareholders to make a
profit. I doubnt the majority of the thousand of shareholders have an interest
in computer chess.

>
>The evidence is the fact that after they won they stopped to play public games
>against humans or computers.

After they won and had to suffer through a very embarrassing (to me as a chess
player at least) barrage of accusations that they somehow cheated!  Maybe this
type of tantrum is tolerated by the chess world, which seem to blindly defend
the world champs, but it doesn't fly in the rest of the world.  If you think
about that for a half of a second you realize what nonesense it was.  Obviously
he was considered the best player at the time.   What did he think happened?
IBM had Joel Benjamin second guessing DB's moves in order to beat him?  After
Kasparov's tantrum how would you like to be the one who approaches IBM's board
of directors in order to suggest IBM spend more money to arrange a rematch for
him?

>
>They convinced part of the public to believe that they are interested in
>research

IBM is and always has been a for profit company.  Everything they do should be
justified to the shareholders on a bottom line basis.  If their Execs started
making decisions to spend money on computer chess purely for the "science" or
their own individual interests they would and should be fired.  They have their
obligation to their shareholders and should not have to make apologies for that.

>(I guess that kasparov was one of the people that they convinced
>otherwise kasparov would ask for a rematch in case of a loss before the match)
>so they deserved to be called cheaters.
>
>Uri

No doubt the DB team was interested in computer chess.  But they never agreed to
a rematch and it is very weak to say they somehow "cheated" because they don't
do something they never agreed to do.
Kasparov simply thought it was impossible for him to lose to a computer.  He
appearently only had expeience with the computers used on sputnik and
miscalculated Deeper blues strength.  Thats why he did not demand a rematch
beforehand.




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