Author: Albert Silver
Date: 04:55:41 03/01/00
Go up one level in this thread
On February 29, 2000 at 17:44:27, Robert Hyatt wrote:
>On February 29, 2000 at 12:47:06, Amir Ban wrote:
>
>>On February 28, 2000 at 22:36:47, Terry Presgrove wrote:
>>
>>>On February 28, 2000 at 22:06:37, Dann Corbit wrote:
>>>
>>>>On February 28, 2000 at 21:55:47, Robert Hyatt wrote:
>>>>>On February 28, 2000 at 20:30:28, Dann Corbit wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>>On February 28, 2000 at 20:25:29, Derrick Williams wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> At the this week in chess site, a letter is displayed by michael Adams
>>>>>>>explaining the circumstances surounding the Deep blue Scandal, It appears that
>>>>>>>Michael Adams is attempting to shift the blame away from himself, on to the
>>>>>>>victims, which was Clearly Amir Ban and his partner Shay. I believe this only
>>>>>>>adds insult to injury, Mr. Adams ought to be ashamed of himself.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>Here is the "open letter":
>>>>>>http://www.chesscenter.com/twic/adams.html
>>>>>
>>>>>It sounds to me like Adams was simply "caught in the middle of a bad
>>>>>situation." It doesn't sound (to me) as though he had any real sort of
>>>>>agenda to cause a problem... I think that the organizers simply had way too
>>>>>much incompetence to let the event run smoothly... This kind of nonsense was
>>>>>inevitable...
>>>>
>>>>I think you are right, but I think that Mr. Adams now blames Amir and Shay. A
>>>>typical example of "blaming the victom" if I ever saw one. I don't think Adams
>>>>is at fault either. But I do fault his derision of Amir, who was (I think)
>>>>stuck in the middle far worse than anyone else -- especially considering the
>>>>outcome.
>>>
>>>
>>> I agree. While Adam's may not be at fault for the forfeit he certainly is
>>> is not a victim. That solely belongs to the DJ team and computer chess fans
>>> everywhere. Mig's failure to notify Amir/Shay of an impending forfiet was
>>> inexcusable. I am not even sure the time sequence of the events lines up with
>>> Amir's account.
>>
>>It doesn't. One thing I managed to understand from Adams' account is that
>>Bermuda is not at EST but one hour later at GMT-4. This means my timeline and
>>Mark Crowther's is wrong at several places. So in fact Mig did not offer the
>>default about 1645 EST, when we were about to start the 2nd game, but at 1600
>>EST, i.e. less than 30 minutes after the first game stopped. I now understand
>>that the 20 minutes delay to start the 2nd game after the draw was concluded at
>>1640 PM was in fact a timeout by Jarecki and Adams to consider, and when it was
>>up they decided to insist on the forfeit. To my best knowledge, we and Aviv
>>knew about the forfeit claim at that point only, though by Adams account Aviv
>>should have known it an hour earlier. Possibly Aviv did not understand what this
>>meant the first time he heard it.
>>
>>I think it's important to set the record straight, as I and others tried to
>>reconstruct in detail what happened. Nobody has been lying here, of course, and
>>in fact there is reasonable agreement between all accounts, and it seems
>>everybody was trying to be accurate though it was not easy in this case.
>>
>>I don't know what this changes in the judgement of these facts. I understand now
>>that the default was offered and taken up nearly an hour earlier than I thought,
>>and since the only reason given for it was the "it's getting late" argument, it
>>only makes it more difficult to understand. This was at a time when Adams could
>>expect in the normal course of events to be starting the second game, with
>>perhaps blitz to follow, so why would anyone think this was too late to play ?
>>
>>I and Shay made it clear that we don't consider Adams to be the main party at
>>fault here. He only took what someone offered, but having taken it, he goes too
>>far in insisting that this was coming to him by right.
>>
>>The telling paragraph in his account is "Having thought about the situation I
>>felt that there should be clarification as to why Deep Junior had not been
>>forfeited as was stated and asked for an explanation prior to the second game.
>>Aviv then had a lengthy conversation with Carol Jarecki who fully supported my
>>position." He does not say why he and Jarecki thought his opponent should be
>>forfeited, except that this was promised by Mig.
>>
>>Amir
>>
>>
>>
>
>
>I think you just have to grow up, and move on. The better you get, the more
>common this sort of 'anti-computer' nonsense becomes. It happened to me.
>
>In 1981 we were invited to a state chess championship, an event we had played in
>every year for several years in a row. We never did particularly well, and were
>not a threat. But in 1981 we were running for the first time on a Cray. And
>we went undefeated and became the first computer to ever win a major tournament,
>in the open section (not in a class section). The first thing that happened,
>even though we reminded everyone that we could not (according to USCF rules)
>take any prizes or money by winning, was that it was pointed out that our
>computer was not a "mississippi resident" and that we should be thrown out
>(after the fact) and all our opponents given wins for the games (Cray Blitz
>didn't lose a game, nor did it draw one).
A couple of questions on this:
Were you really required to be a state resident to participate in the open
section of the championship? I never heard of such a clause other than that one
must be a resident to actually be 'state champion'. A friend of mine for example
came in 7th in the Paris Open in 1990 yet was declared Paris champion as he was
the highest ranked player registered in the Ile-de-France (state/region of
Paris).
I would have also immediately asked about the procedures necessary to register
the machine as a mississippi resident. Would they accept a receipt as a
substitute for a birth certificate? :-)
Albert Silver
>
>It was nonsensical, and I became convinced that playing in human events was
>something that was going to become more and more infrequent for us. Your
>strength was against you. The fact that you were running a computer, a
>perception that _totally_ overlooks the fact that your team are 'humans', was
>against you (favor human over machine every time when possible).
>
>The deck was stacked. It won't always happen like that... but if you want to
>play against humans with a strong program/machine, you had best be prepared. It
>happened to me more than once. The danger is always present, because human egos
>are very fragile things at times...
>
>I personally would have loved to see you play Kasparov, and beat him if
>possible. :) I really wanted to see who he would rant and rave at if that
>happened. :)
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