Author: Rolf Tueschen
Date: 11:08:42 02/06/03
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On February 06, 2003 at 12:22:53, Russell Reagan wrote: >I think it depends upon how the person(s) in question view their activity. An >example. > >There is an American named Bo Jackson who was a phenomenal athlete. He was an >all-star baseball player and football player. A master of two sports. He was >also said to be a world class sprinter. He broke his hip playing football, and >was later able to come back from hip replacement surgery to play professional >baseball for a short time (an impressive accomplishment). > >I saw him being interviewed on television one night, and the host of the show >asked him if he still followed sports, and he said that he did not. This was >very suprising to me, since he was among the world's best at many sports. He >said that he never really loved sports, but that it was simply his job, and he >did the best he could at his job. > >How a chess player views the game of chess will determine to some degree what >his intentions are. If a chess player views the game of chess as his job, a >business venture, then he is primarily involved to make money. If there were no >money in chess, he might move on to pursue more financially beneficial >endeavors. He is only a professional chess player because he can make a good >living. On the other hand, a player who truly loves and enjoys chess will play >regardless of whether they ever make any money. There are many people like this >who pay money to play, and who never win any monetary prize. > >So the question is, what kind of people are Kasparov, Kramnik, etc.? Do you >think they would be professional chess players if being a professional chess >player paid the same as a school teacher or a police officer? What if chess was >not held in such high regard in their countries? What if chess didn't give them >super celebrity status with far reaching influence in their home countries? Yes, these questions are all very interesting, but I don't see how they could help for the answers on my questions. Even if we knew nothing at all about the personality of the named players, we should be able to analyse questions about the relevance of the show event. You know what I mean? Not to answer my questions with 100% certainty but with probabilities. If for exasmple such a "match" would be judged as biased then I would not so much care what the human players are like but I would say that then they should take the money and be happy. Here in CCC (that is a computerchess forum) I asked experts how we could see the relevance (viewed from the computer side). From the chess side I already made clear how I judged such 6 game "matches". For me neither DB2 in 97 nor DJ now were serious opponents for Kasparov. DB2 because nobody knew the machine and DJ because it's a joke to see it as a GM. But that is only my opinion. These draws in Huebner and Kramnik events - don't they keep you thinking enough? Now probably the draw here? To your difficult questions and assumptions let me just give my 2 cts. I don't like to speculate about personalities of people I never talked to. What we know from history, such players who learn the game with 5 already, they were probably prodigies. They have an extremely exact memory. That's the most important thing. If they can be conditioned on chess then this are the future GM by definition. Their motivation for chess is not a question. You are right. Under the former system in the USSR trainers (very important!) and players had a privileged good life. But in the western world chess players never made much money because chess prior to Fischer didn't allow to make much money. Those who could defend other social interests successfully probably left the tournament circus and studied. Certainly a good choice, because I am definitely convinced that chess doesn't provide many elevated intellectual challenges and social events, it's just chess, really a niche sport. Social life in the peer group is not on the high level of the chess talents. With good memory you can be a fool in logical reasoning. It's a bit triste to watch these GM to play cards and drink alcohol after the games. I think that Kamsky made a heroic decision when he went into medicine. He could still play chess for decades to come. But he must have been lost in the usual gambling atmosphere of our Western Chess Culture. So, it could well be that Kramnik and Kasparov simply take the sponsors for a ride and save their future prospects. Maybe. But as I said - I wanted to hear from the expertd in CC. To learn about the possible motivation of such teams like now the DJ one. Do they, these experts and programmers, see any serious reasons why they should play such strong human players? Russell, do you believe that they had good psycho analysis about the players? :) Thanks especially for your specific American example. We here in Europe, me at least, never hear about such sport heroes. If you can, feel free to provide many more such interesting data. No joking. Rolf Tueschen
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