Kasparov (Chess This Time)

Comments

Since it's going to be a rapid Fischerandom, they should have at least rapidly, but not randomly, invited Fischer. Just think of the PR if he would have said...sure, why not. Yes, I know pigs can't fly, but it would have made for an interesting thread on here.
Posted by: chesstraveler at July 23, 2006 14:21

Inviting Fischer might not be a very good idea. Remember to whom he ascribes all his troubles...
Posted by: Charles Milton Ling at July 23, 2006 15:55

That's what would have made the PR, promotion and various threads interesting. Of course its fantasy on my part, Fischer sitting down at the board with Karpov and Kasparov for the first time; not to mention the mercurial Korchnoi and Judith without giving knight odds to her, the scenarios would have been endless. Live a little.
Posted by: chesstraveler at July 23, 2006 17:24

Yea, and come to think of it, I think he would actually be interested in playing a Fischerandom tournament, provided he was compensated accordingly...
Posted by: Sean Eaton at July 23, 2006 18:45

Come to think of it, he might be interested in doing such, if he was compensated for it. I believe in one of his radio interviews he said he would consider playing in a Fischerandom event(though I could be wrong on this). It would be a good PR stunt, though.
Posted by: Sean Eaton at July 23, 2006 18:52

Come to think of it, he might be interested in doing such, if he was compensated for it. I believe in one of his radio interviews he said he would consider playing in a Fischerandom event(though I could be wrong on this). It would be a good PR stunt, though.
Posted by: Sean Eaton at July 23, 2006 18:53

Come to think of it, he might be interested in doing such, if he was compensated for it. I believe in one of his radio interviews he said he would consider playing in a Fischerandom event(though I could be wrong on this). It would be a good PR stunt, though.
Posted by: macuga at July 23, 2006 20:05

Title of this thread could be;
"Fischer(Chess This Time and Forever)"

So,Swiss bankers decided to put money into Fischerandom Chess!

...."magazine readers-who would be unlikely to know or care about type of chess anyway".
Maybe,but I am sure they likely know who is Fischer;probably more than who are 3K and Judit.
Posted by: rmm at July 23, 2006 21:35

Well Bobby might have some serious money issues, if he can't get his funds from that Swiss account into a secure bank. Yes, the invite would have been proper, even though I'm sure Bobby would decline. Oh I believe his quote in one of his interviews concerning playing someone in FischerRandom went like this. "Yes I'll even consider playing the criminal, but the money's gotta be right, ya know"...or something to that affect.
Posted by: Bruce Towell at July 23, 2006 22:48

MIG WROTE:
[1] "... their magazine's readers – who would be unlikely to know or care about the type of chess anyway."

[2] "'Just another rapid tournament' is a much less jazzy return."

I agree with [2], but I disagree with [1]. Their readers might not know about FRC (aka chess960) yet. But most people know enuf about traditional chess to accurately comprehend that FRC is in interesting loosening of the restrictive rules.

Without the FRC aspect, this event would just be some more games among greats who have already played each other many times, except now at time controls (which reduce the value of the games to us spectators and post game replayers).

FRC/chess960 has a future along side traditional chess (not replacing traditional chess). It is just a question of how long before chess960's future really begins to take root. In the money starved world of chess, chess960 is only one major sponsor away from mattering (if long time controls are used).

To learn more, search Amazon.com books for "chess960".

Gene Milener
http://CastleLong.com/
Posted by: Gene_M at July 24, 2006 03:26

Hmm funny... Korchnoi is scheduled to play in Banyoles (north of Spain) from 17th to 25th August. I wonder how he will make it to Zurich on the 22nd...

See event website http://www.compartir.org/escacsbanyoles/first.htm

and list of players

http://www.compartir.org/escacsbanyoles/eng/list1.php
Posted by: Spanish Korchnoi Fan at July 24, 2006 05:51

Seems that there is no real maternity leave for super chess-mom. Congrats Judit!
Posted by: Leon at July 24, 2006 06:14

In his remark, Kasparov should have added: "Korchnoi was a world class player before I was born".
Remember, Korchnoi was Soviet champion in 1960, and a participant in the Curacao 1962 Candidates tournamento for the world title.

In case someone prefers to discuss FischerRandom, or Chess960, I want to say that personally I love it. Somewhat silly, but it makes me feel I am playing against Philidor, not knowing a dime about openings.
For a different opinion, look at Tim Krabbé's Open Chess Diary, items 123 and 126.
http://www.xs4all.nl/~timkr/chess/chess.html
Posted by: edu at July 24, 2006 13:56

If I'm not mistaken Krabbe's No. 126 is a sly joke, befitting a learned and witty man such as he: I recall the diagram position is from a famous game won by Botvinnik. I think Botvinnik might even hav described it as his favorite among all his games.
Posted by: flyonthewall at July 24, 2006 14:48

Indeed, fly. I remember laughing heartily. (Botvinnik - Capablanca, AVRO 1938, if I am not mistaken)
Posted by: Charles Milton Ling at July 24, 2006 16:03

I have nothing against FRC or Chess960 or whatever the preferred name is, but I have no real interest in it either.

So I find it very disappointing that Kasparov will be playing FRC instead of chess. He might as well be playing checkers, backgammon or bughouse as far as I am concerned. If it's not chess, it's not chess.
Posted by: SonOfPearl at July 24, 2006 16:04

Personally, I think TK is right on the money here :

"How Fischer ever got the chess world to accept tying his name to this old idea, is a mystery. Shuffle chess has been known for over 200 years under various names, such as Pre-chess, Baseline Chess, Varied Baseline Chess, Meta Chess, Array Chess and others."

Now 960 as well. I read somewhere once that Benko showed "shuffle chess" to Fischer (pre fisticuffs), but I don't know if I buy it. I'm sure Fischer would have come across it earlier than that.
Posted by: Babson at July 24, 2006 16:07

SonOfPearl,
I understand how you feel, and some degree of disappointment is perhaps inevitable. A great majority of chess players/fans probably harbor the hope that GK will at some point pull a Michael Jordan and return to full-blown competitive chess.

But as far as FRC itself, consider being more open-minded about the game. I'm as dismissive as anybody of the various forms of "fairy chess" (chess with different rules). For instance, I have made positively scathing comments about the "anti-draw" rule changes (stalemate is a win, threefold repetition is a loss, etc.) proposed by various fools unhappy with chess because it isn't backgammon, or Go, or badminton or some other game that cannot end in a split decision.

The sole exception I make is FRC (and, presumably, other forms of shuffle-chess). That's because I see it not as chess with different rules -- rather, as plain old chess played from a different starting position. It's still chess, all the rules are exactly the same. So it's like looking at a chess puzzle, mate-in-X problem, study, or diagram. No one would equate those with "checkers, backgammon or bughouse."

Babson,
I don't know just how Fischer got his name attached to "his" form of shuffle chess. But the larger point is that it's rare in the extreme for anything to be "new" in any pure sense -- whether in chess or any other human endeavor. Benko did not invent the Benko Gambit. Numerous other openings bear the names of people who weren't the first to play the moves, weren't even the first to play them in numberous games and elaborate some of the ideas behind them. Rather, contributing an important wrinkle, and popularizing the opening or variation to a point where others take it up, seem to be the main qualifications for naming. I see nothing wrong with that.
Posted by: flyonthewall at July 24, 2006 17:09

Who really cares about all this?
Posted by: Ruslan at July 24, 2006 20:50

Lots of folks, I'll bet. It'll be nice to see a chess game start at move one, for a change, instead of, at move twenty-five.
Posted by: greg koster at July 24, 2006 21:11

Oh, sorry for the multiple post... I was having problems earlier with errors. One of the biggest incentives for Fischer is the money, and by going into a game with neither him nor his opponent knowing what the starting position is going to be, it kind of dispells all his accusations about russian cheating/prearranged games. It must be far more exciting for Fischer, considering he must've looked at thousands of games at the very least... it would get kind of boring going through every position so many times. That's probably what he meant when he said chess is played out.
Posted by: Sean Eaton at July 24, 2006 23:40

edu's post reminded me of a question I've been wanting to ask for a while:

Have there been any GM's or IM's that play pretty much without an opening repertoire (i.e. do not memorize reems of opening analysis and rely rather on general principles and OTB calculation)?
Posted by: Sans Repertoire at July 25, 2006 04:40

The well-known Peruvian adulterer Granda Zuniga is always said to be the strongest GM never to have had an opening repertoire. But actually many GMs know much less theory than people imagine. Salov even in his best years, for example, played very untheoretical openings.
Posted by: rdh at July 25, 2006 05:54

Kasparov, the greatest player of all time, comes out of retirement ..... but just to play some silly chess variant instead of chess ?? Deeply disappointing - but it's still better than nothing. At least the pieces move in the same way.
Posted by: acirce at July 25, 2006 07:09

never thought I would agree with acirce, but I do..What a pathetic waste
Posted by: d at July 25, 2006 07:41

Armenian GM Artashes Minasian also has a very limited opening repertoire. I can recall him coming out of opening lost with white against an IM on move 15. Another time he got a pawn-down rook ending after misplayed opening, again with white. The other time, when playing against one of the newcomers of Arm. Championship, he played 3.b3 in Sicilian 2.Bb5. The youngster quickly got an equal position, then Minasian slowly outplayed him.
Meanwhile he is very solid player, with very keen sense of tactics. He has been meny-time champion of Armenia, and champion of USSR in late 80s(maybe 1990 or 1991, I'm not sure). He is one of the biggest favourites of chess fans of Armenia for his 3.b3 s and then all-out attacks :)
Posted by: Ando at July 25, 2006 07:43

Chess' fascination lies in the indefinite creative manipulations of the familiar pieces and pawns, on the familiar board, via the familiar rules.

Just as there's something artificial and unsatisfying about "theme" tournaments where every game must, for example, begin 1 e4 e5 2 f4, maybe there's ultimately something unsatisfying about lining up the pieces and pawns always in the same array for hundreds of years.

We wish to preserve what's best in chess, so we cling to tradition. But we shouldn't cling blindly. One of chess' greatest traditions, that each game generally produce a winner and a loser, stands in conflict with our current traditions: traditional opening setup, traditional chess rules, traditional long time-controls.

At the very top level, these traditions cannot all survive at once. Kirsan experimented with rapid time-controls, increasing the advantage of the quicker players and producing more decisive games, but we objected to the resultant sloppiness.

What's left? Change the rules of chess (a stalemated player loses, etc.) and render obsolete a world of old games, old books, old maxims?

Or allow gradual, minimal change (one new position per year? per decade?) in the opening setup, in a random portion (25%? 50%?) of chess games played.

Had the original rules of chess allowed for 960 different startup positions, imagine the hue and cry if some organization wanted to restrict the game, after several centuries, to ONE opening position, whose possibilities could eventually be significantly "mined out" and 80% of whose games at the very top levels would end as draws.
Posted by: greg koster at July 25, 2006 09:01

Not to mention the sheer historical interest of sitting these four old rivals across the board from each other. What better place for the director of the Swiss intelligence service to sit in the audience and glare at Karpov? What better place for Judit to set down a knight, take her fingers off it for an instant, then move it elsewhere? Old scores could be settled!
Posted by: greg koster at July 25, 2006 09:11

Greg,

All excellent points. Your longer comment echoes some of Gene Milener's arguments. Gene, who commented early in this thread, wrote a book promoting FRC. As I said, I have almost no tolerance for any kind of chess variant -- yet I found Gene's arguments for FRC/960 compelling.

The one that resonated most was this: All we know about chess strategy (middlegame and even, to a lesser extent, endgame) is an outgrowth of characteristic pawn structures and piece-formations that tend to arise naturally from the initial position, via common opening sequences. But how can anyone be sure this is all there is to know about strategy -- how probable is it that the characteristic types of formations that have been studied to date, are the only ones worth studying? Looked at objectively, it seems more likely that there are other, less-explored formations whose full elaboration and study would deepen our understanding of chess (by "our" here, I am referring to the chess world as a whole, meaning top GMs and other gurus -- not you and me). And this wider range of formations, and the broadening of the body of chess knowledge they could make possible, would arise out of FRC.

Anyway that's Gene's argument (one of them anyway) for wider acceptance of FRC. Like I said, I found it compelling, even from my personal stance as an "old chess" purist.
Posted by: flyonthewall at July 25, 2006 10:49

How do you discuss with your friends "a great game of Chess960 between Polgar and the 3Ks"?

Answer: You don't.

The problem with Chess960 is that there are no opening references, no history, no tradition, and no records to be broken to which one can relate.

Whoever thinks that new openings are a thing of the past, or that interesting, exciting ideas don't exist anymore until after move 20 is sadly lacking in creativity. Only eight months ago Zvjaginsev played 2.Na3 in the Sicilian and beat Khalifman. With that same opening, he then beat Ponomariov five months later. Sasikiran played the same opening twice in the spring, winning first as black, then a month later with the white pieces.

If you can't relate to it, or tell tall stories about it ... then you can't sell it.

I hope everyone chooses the original starting position for this tournament instead of some quickly-to-be-forgotten variant.
Posted by: original only at July 25, 2006 12:40

Add me to the list of bitterly disappointed. When I saw the lineup, I thought "what a perfect group for GK to play a fun exibition tournament with!" When I saw here that is not regular chess, my thoughts changed to "too bad I won't watch any of it."

Wouldn't it be ironic, perhaps even enlightening, to have a conference on innovation featuring the game that hasn't changed in 500+ years? It would show the world that *true* innovation comes from the people who practice a craft rather than altering the craft itself.

Vote for the original position!

-Matt
Posted by: Globular at July 25, 2006 12:52

"No opening references, no history, no tradition, and no records to be broken."

We owe a debt of gratitude to the first chess players; those who faced these same obstacles, and persevered....and paved the way for their great successors.
Posted by: greg koster at July 25, 2006 13:28

Garry doesn't consider it coming out of retirement, which would indicate a return to professional chess. It's an exhibition that is pretty much meaningless from a sporting point of view in my opinion. Adding Karpov and Korchnoi adds some heat I suppose, but Kasparov is hardly coming back to chess even if they end up playing rapid instead of shuffle chess.
Posted by: Mig at July 25, 2006 13:53

Please enlighten me, because I don't understand this: how can you be disappointed by someone who doesn't owe you anything?
If Kasparov's mother was dissapointed, that would be fair because she raised him, but how can complete strangers have demands as to what kind of a tournament should a certain player play?

Maybe I'm just too dumb to understand this. But I don't think that fans or bystanders who never invested a penny in Kasparov's career should judge his (or any other player's) choice, especially in such a negative, and in my opinion shortsighted, way.
Posted by: Linux fan at July 25, 2006 13:57

Meaningless from a sporting point of view!?

This is the price Credit-Suisse pays for not hiring Mig to work on their event, which surely has more sporting integrity than, say, the goofily-structured U.S. Championship.
Posted by: greg koster at July 25, 2006 14:23

Does ANYONE here actually like each other?!

Karpov--Kasparov. Long rivalry and history of acrimony.
Karpov--Korchnoi. Even worse.
Kasparov--Polgar. The "touch-move" incident with 2 frames.

Why NOT put Fischer in there for extra vitriol? :)
Posted by: global at July 25, 2006 15:05

Linux fan, English is not my native language, so I may be missing something here. But I thought being "disappointed" doesn't imply any kind of feeling that anyone "owes" anything to us

Dictionary.com gives "To fail to satisfy the hope, desire, or expectation of."

I can be disappointed seeing an 11-move draw because I had wanted to see a real game, but it doesn't mean I blame the players.
Posted by: acirce at July 25, 2006 15:42

And I agree that "coming out of retirement" was the wrong way of putting it.
Posted by: acirce at July 25, 2006 15:43

Linux fan wrote:

Please enlighten me, because I don't understand this: how can you be disappointed by someone who doesn't owe you anything?

I don't feel Kasparov "owes" me anything; I'm just a fan of (regular) chess, and would love to see more of his games. I'm dissapointed because the games won't interest me, that's all.

-Matt
Posted by: Globular at July 25, 2006 15:55

Christ, Koster, pull your head out. Why do you have to always be such an insulting prat? You seriously can't tell the difference between a shuffle chess exhibition and a return to professional chess? Do you understand what "exhibition" means? Or "sporting point of view" in the context of professional chess? Have you noticed that most people here can tell the difference? It's not even chess, it's a variant. I was referring to the chess aspect. If they played rapid, or even blitz, expectations and the stakes would obviously be much higher. As someone above mentioned, they could be playing backgammon or snooker and there would still be a sporting point of view. Last I checked, the US championship was chess. I didn't particularly like the format, as I said repeatedly.

Naturally, if I praised the event Koster would be whining to high heavens about my complimenting a Kasparov event despite my longstanding aversion to shuffle chess.
Posted by: Mig at July 25, 2006 15:58

Mig, you seem to be in current contact with GK; is there any hope that this event will switch to regular chess? Personally, I consider all rapid events as exhibitions, so I have no allusions that GK will be "returning," per se, I'd just like to see some more Kasparov games of normal chess, especially against this lineup!

-Matt
Posted by: Globular at July 25, 2006 16:03

Garry had no intention of playing "regular" chess at any time control in Zurich. (That this reminds me a little too much of the way Fischer sounds is starting to disturb me!) He was planning on having fun with the shuffle chess stuff and scheduled some practice for his vacation in Croatia. If this turns out to be regular rapid it will require some serious convincing. He never closed the door on playing rapid or other exhibition style events, but of course he'd take such things more seriously.
Posted by: Mig at July 25, 2006 16:12

Mig wrote:

(That this reminds me a little too much of the way Fischer sounds is starting to disturb me!)

Exactly! That's how the world is going to view this. As TWIC said "...but sadly its only Fischerandom or shuffle chess."

Anyway, that's my opinion. I doubt my opinion constitutes "serious convincing," but I think it's a mistake for him to play FischerRandom/Chess960/Shuffle (The lack of an accepted name should be a clue; even "bughouse" has only one name ;) ).

FWIW,
-Matt
Posted by: Globular at July 25, 2006 16:24

Glad we're back in agreement again.

It's meaningful in a sporting point of view, as it would be if they were playing backgammon or snooker. But it's meaningless in a "who's the best chess player" context.

In the future I'll try to respond to what you mean rather than what you say.
Posted by: greg koster at July 25, 2006 16:33

Never thought I'd find myself defending a chess "variant" against its critics, but I see a chance the event will surprise everyone by seizing the chess public's imagination, and thereby turn into the breakthrough that finally establishes FRC/960 as a respectable alternative to regular chess.
Posted by: Jon Jacobs at July 25, 2006 17:49

---[1]---
Someone earlier may have implied there is no reason to believe the best players of traditional chess are also the best chess960 players ("meaningless in a who's the best chess player context").

However, on www.ChessTigers.de, there are round-by-round results publicly available going back four years. The posted data covers both the chess960 tournaments and their sister tournaments of traditional "chess1". Those data show...

Players with the best FIDE ratings reliably won their traditional chess1 games **AND** won their chess960 games. Sure there were some upsets in both tournaments. The fact chess1 ratings were highly predictive of chess960 results tends to bolster the perspective that both chess1 and chess960 are just chess.

---[2]---
Credit-Suisse is not stupid. They just have the audacity to design a chess event to reach the **interest of the large chess lay public**; beyond the boundaries of the relatively few hardcore chess players.

Thanks.
Posted by: Gene_M at July 25, 2006 23:53

Bughouse has many names. We played it as Exchange Chess in the 1960's, about thirty years before I personally ever heard it called bughouse, although I expect it's a geographic thing.

Let's face it, when it comes to chess you're either retired or you're not. A few rapid exhibition games wouldn't be any more or any less interesting.
Posted by: rdh at July 26, 2006 06:17

Greg hits the nail right on the head, when he commented about the hue and cry from folks if organizers wanted to restrict the game to just ONE initial starting position, instead of the other 959 positions folks have been playing for hundreds of years. FischerRandom, Chess 960, Shuffle Chess, it's all chess folks. What you call "regular" chess is just ONE of the starting positions. I think Garry has every right to try to explore the other 959 positions in this game we call chess.
Posted by: Bruce Towell at July 26, 2006 06:25

Greg hits the nail right on the head, when he commented about the hue and cry from folks if organizers wanted to restrict the game to just ONE initial starting position, instead of the other 959 positions folks have been playing for hundreds of years. FischerRandom, Chess 960, Shuffle Chess, it's all chess folks. What you call "regular" chess is just ONE of the starting positions. I think Garry has every right to try to explore the other 959 positions in this game we call chess.
Posted by: Bruce Towell at July 26, 2006 06:25

I read Gary's Q&A and was extremely impressed by his command of English. Everything to the point and very well, even brilliantly articulated. Was this a live Q&A or did he write it in?

Linux fan, yes, you are too dumb to understand it.
Posted by: d at July 26, 2006 06:29