Kasparov Chess Match Versus Alan Turing's 'Paper Machine' at Centenary Celebrations in Manchester

Garry Kasparov

Legendary World Chess Champion Grandmaster Garry Kasparov attended the Alan Turing Centenary Celebrations in Manchester today. Kasparov also beat the Turing "Paper Machine" - the first chess computer programme ever written - at a chess game in 16 moves. Kasparov played the game as a demonstration of the vision of Alan Turing who had written the programme for the first chess computer right after the Second World War much before the computer had even been invented! Turing wrote that programme for a machine that was to be invented in the future. 

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Čez Chess Trophy Match - Svidler Beats Navara 3.0-1.0

Russia's Peter Svidler beat Czech Republic's David Navara in Prague 3-1 in the traditional Čez Chess Trophy Match of four games. Svidler won the second and third games. The first and fourth games were drawn. The traditional Čez Chess Trophy is hosted every year to give top-rated Czech GM David Navara the opportunity to play top chess players from around the world. In previous years he has played Vassily Ivanchuk, Vladimir Kramnik and Judit Polgar. Earlier, the tournament used to be one of rapid chess games, but this year the match was held in the classical time control format with all effort by organiser Pavel Matocha.

 

Phoro: Anežka Kružíková

Navara and Svidler played a match of four classical chess games of the time control 90 minutes for 40 moves followed by 30 minutes for finishing the game. There was a 30 second increment for ever move as well. The sponsor was Čez Group, a conglomerate of companies involved in the electricity generation, distribution, and trade.

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Chess is a Total Waste of Time in Life! (ChessForums Link Updated)

A Black & White reader has sent us something about chess that's 'thought-provoking'. We leave it upon our readers to comment on this. Send your comments from anywhere in the world to editor@blackandwhiteindia.com and we would compile an article with the best comments. You could even win a prize.

Chess is no good

by N.Dharmeshwaran,

Guduvancherry, Chennai

• Chess serves no real purpose outside itself
• Chess uses time and effort, and displaces other activities which might be better than it in some ways
• Chess is inherently unconstructive. While the theory can be intellectual and academic in nature (though inherently unimportant), the purpose is fundamentally to defeat the opponent. It is possible that chess causes unconstructive patterns of thought by a process analagous to transference. i.e. in chess you are fighting alone against an opponent, so other things can seem like that even if they are not, which can be unhelpful. Of course, there are ways in which this could be considered a pro - perhaps in certain areas like business the fighting aspect of chess could be well-channeled. [This point is based both on my own experience and what I have observed in others]
• Very few chess players can earn money from chess, especially with the large number of GMs in the world these days. Professional chess has very limited income streams from non-participants. Of course this is not a con at all to most people, who play chess as a hobby and have no interest in chess as a career
• While some types of chess are cheap, playing in frequent OTB tournaments is expensive and takes a lot of time, with a large impact on the rest of one's life.
• Chess can be obsessive, which can be damaging to other areas of life.

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What would you say to  N.Dharmeshwaran?


Since we first posted this, there's an awesome discussion going on at the ChessForums. 

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