Author: odell hall
Date: 10:35:24 05/11/99
Great days for chess in Israel Express Commentary by Garry Kasparov T he match between Fritz5.32 and Judit Polgar demonstrated that chessplaying software on powerful PC represented serious threats even for top professional players who spent time on specific anti-computer preparation. No matter how good is the position after the opening, no matter what kind of positional mistakes made by the computer struggling with unusual moves order - the destiny of the game is decided in most of the cases in tactical complications. It seems pretty clear now that tactical element plays much more important role in the game of chess then we used to believe before. In speed chess it is very hard for a human player to resist this kind of tactical pressure. An impressive performance of Junior vs best Israeli players is another convincing argument. Again, chessplaying software was facing strong and well-prepared opposition. Looking at the games we discover significant simularities. Choosing most unpleasant openings for any computer Israelis had very promising situation after first 20 moves.However, there was not enough time to break through very persistent computer defence. Alterman was not able to improve his promising position and draw was agreed. Avrukh who was at one point completely winning made typical human mistake - made few moves in expectations of opponent`s capitulation. Unfortunately for us, humans, machines do not resign unless being utterly destroyed. Junior's King miracleously escaped from imminent mating attack and Avrukh, shocked by this surprising development, collapsed after materialisation of the first computer threats. Kosahvili was the luckiest - he could avoid tactical complications and forced mashine into passive defence without any hopes for active counterplay. This massacre reminded me Game 6 of my first match against Deep Blue in Philadelphia in 1996. Boris Gelfand also did his homework. Game 1 was another demonstration of computer's weakness in the positional maneuvring behind pawns' chains. In Game 2 Boris following conventional wisdom exchanged Queens at very early stage and reached a popular endgame where positional understanding is always required. Alas, the realization of serious positional advantage proved to be a very difficult task since computer was not getting nervous under growing White pressure and premature exchanges led to a dead draw endgame.In the second Game despite the limited number of pieces pressure was not reduced and Black had to play accurately dealing with serious positonal problems enlarged by certain tactical tricks. In speed chess it was too tough even for the player of Gelfand's stature. So, congratulations for Junior and Fritz software teams! Taking in account Anand's poor performance in blitz and speed chess against Rebel last year may be we should reluctanly accept computer's domination in all forms of rapid play. Although the quality of machine's games is far away from ideal. But do we have strength and energy to capitalize on it? Deep Junior - Boris Gelfand (2700) Spring 99, Kasparov Chess Academy (2), 10.05.1999 [express commentary by Garry Kasparov] 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 Nf6 4.0-0 Nxe4 5.d4 Nd6 6.Bxc6 dxc6 7.dxe5 Nf5 8.Qxd8+ Kxd8 9.Nc3 Ke8 10.Ne2 Ne7 11.h3 Ng6 12.Rd1 Be6 13.Ned4 Bd5 14.h4 Bc5 15.h5 Ne7 16.b3 Rd8 17.Bg5 h6 18.Bh4 Rd7 19.c4 Bxf3 20.Nxf3 Nf5 21.Rab1 Nd4 22.Nxd4 Rxd4 23.Rxd4 Bxd4 24.Rd1 c5 25.b4 b6 26.bxc5 bxc5 27.Kf1 Kd7 28.f4 Ke6 29.g4 Rb8 30.Re1 g6 31.hxg6 fxg6 32.Bg3 h5? [32...Rb4 33.Re2 Rxc4 34.f5+ gxf5 35.gxf5+ Kxf5 36.e6 Rc1+ 37.Kg2 Bf6 38.e7 Bxe7 39.Rxe7 Rc2+=] 33.gxh5 gxh5 34.Ke2 Rh8 [34...Rb2+? 35.Kf3 Rxa2 36.Ke4+-] 35.Rh1 h4 [35...Kf5 36.Kf3 Rh6 37.Be1 Rh8 38.Rh2 Rh6 39.a4! (39.Bh4? Ra6; 39.Rg2 h4 40.Rg5+ Ke6) A) 39...Rh7 40.Bh4 Rg7 41.Bf6 Rh7 42.Rg2 h4 43.Rg5+ Ke6 44.f5+ Kf7 45.Rg6 Kf8 (45...h3 46.e6+ Kf8 47.e7+ Kf7 48.Rg8+-) 46.Kg2 h3+ 47.Kh2± Rh5 48.e6+-; B) 39...Bg1 40.Rg2 Rg6 41.Rxg6 Kxg6 42.Ke4+-] 36.Rxh4 Rxh4 37.Bxh4 Bb2 38.Be1 Kf5 39.Bd2 a6 40.Kd3 Bd4 41.Be3 Bb2 42.Kc2 Ba3 43.Bd2 1-0 (c)1998 WEB-studio InterEcoDesign
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