Although Leslie Walker introduces this story in an unfortunate way, she does write some interesting articles. This one is about the latest GM (grandmaster) showdown between Kramnik and Deep Fritz.
I can understand why someone who doesn't know much about chess may find this comment by Walker true
"it might have all the thrill of watching paint dry, but the most novel entertainment on the Internet this week is at the "brains in Bahrain" Web site",
but as an avid chess admirer, I remember before most people heard of the Internet, watching probably the very first webcast of anything. It was Kasparov against some challenger, and if you know chess, it's a lot of fun.
I've seen some coverage lately on this topic and find it unfortunate the way Kasparov's match in '97 is characterized as a loss for him. I seem to remember him objecting to the conditions of the match. In between games, apparently some IMs (or was it GMs) reprogrammed Deep Blue to deal specifically with how Garry was playing. That's not the same as playing against an algorithm at all.
Unfortunately, I cannot find any online reference to those statements. I was able to find some comments at Kasparov's website about the current match though.
Here's the URL for the Brains in Bahrain showdown.
Here's Bill Gates' thoughts dated well before the match where Kasparov lost.
A final thought. Can the game of chess be "solved" by a computer like Tic Tac Toe can? In other words, is there one or several best moves for every single position? Strangely, people used to think no. I always thought it did. Although there are an infinite number of moves (if each side moves their queen between 3 squares indefinitely, the match could go on forever), in fact there are a finite number of positions that each piece can legally be in. Just figure out every possible outcome of every position and chess is "solved".
This is more complex than meets the eye, because of the infinite variety of moves, but I believe that the right algorithm can achieve a "solution". Caveat, I am not a mathemetician.
