PART 1 • Some thoughts on kasparov vs. Deep blue
early 80's. Nowadays many of us are so closely wedded to our computers that we can't imagine life without them. What took us so long to figure it all out?
FIGURING OUT THE NEW TOOL
The personal computer really is a remarkable tool. I can do all sorts of interesting and valuable things on it. I can store an entire encyclopedia on
a compact disk and search for specific information on nearly any topic
quickly and easily. I can simulate an entire English League soccer season in a matter of seconds. I can write letters and send them electronically without a pen having touched a paper or a tongue having licked a
stamp. I can «talk» to friends the world over in real time by typing words
on my keyboard, words which they see on their screens a mere fraction
of a second later. I can control my personal finances, do my taxes, and
even send my 1040 to the IRS electronically.
And then there's chess, the reason I bought the infernal device. I can play
a game against a computer any time of the day or night, without shame or
embarrassment if I should lose. Many years ago, I made part of my living
as a bar-room chess hustler and never had a problem getting a game.
Nowadays I take my set out and hit the town and I may have to go to three
or four places before I find an opponent. Everybody who wants to play is
at home either challenging their computer or playing online.
It's a far cry from the days of my childhood. Back then, if I wanted to play
chess I had to either find an opponent or be stuck playing through games
from books. The closest I could get to anything competitive in the latter
case was Al Horowitz's «Solitaire Chess» feature in Chess Life. These
days, I just turn on my PC and fire up any of my 50+ chessplaying programs. I can get a game at any level, from the no-brain play of Clueless
to the razor-sharp tactics of Fritz4.
When my game is done, I can use that game I've played to help me improve. I can fire up ChessBase and do a database search on the opening
I played in my game against the computer. I have access to opening trees
and games with grandmaster commentary as well as hundreds of thousands
of unannotated games. I can find out quickly and easily where I strayed in
the opening and whether or not there's a better line that I could have played.
After that, I can have a strong chessplaying engine analyze every move
of my game and show me exactly where I went wrong. And, after several of these analyzed games, I can see patterns developing in my play. I
can isolate fundamental gaps and weaknesses in my chess knowledge
and concentrate on improving these weak points.
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