Chess
Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.THE SIEMENS giants ended in Frankfurt on Friday in yet another triumph for Garry Kasparov. As I noted yesterday, this was his fourth victory in a row this year following Wijk aan Zee, Linares and Sarajevo; and it confirms him - if confirmation were needed - as the dominant player of the age. Indeed, in view of the tough opposition, he is surely the strongest player thus far in chess history.
Unbeaten throughout - though he did survive some tricky moments in his second game against Anand, which I gave here briefly on Friday - Kasparov won one game against each of the others and drew the rest for a final tally of 7.5/12. This brought him well clear of Anand, who fought back well in the latter two cycles, and Kramnik - who had a bad third cycle but was unbeaten apart from it - on 6/12 and Karpov, who faded very badly at the end, on just 4.5.
In the second section, the ridiculously misnamed "Masters", it was nevertheless Fritz 6 which ended up first, ahead of the assorted grandmasters on 9.5/14.
Despite their tiredness, the others did somewhat better against the computer in the second cycle, where it scored 4.5/7 rather than 5; but the program's ruthless exploitation of errors and total lack of fatigue added up to this splendid result which however, presents the organisers with something of a headache since they've agreed that it should qualify for the top section next time - but this may prove offputting to some of the other "giants".
After Fritz's 9.5/14 came Leko and Topalov 9, Svidler 7.5, Judit Polgar and Lutz 6 and, most surprisingly, two very strong players at the bottom: Morozevich on 5.5 and Michael Adams on just 3.5.
Happily some balance was restored when Fritz met Anand on Saturday and Sunday for a revenge match, following its 1.5-0.5 victory against him last year. This time, Anand did succeed in downing the monster 2.5-1.5, albeit with a certain amount of good fortune. Perhaps the most interesting moment came, not in the win but rather in the perilous position shown here.
Anand vs Fritz 6
(second game)
Although Black is a piece up, the result would remain problematical, in view of White's very solid kingside structure, even if Black exchanged a pair of rooks and won the a pawn. But after 32 ...Rxa2? 33 Rdd2! Fritz's operators agreed an immediate draw in view of the eternal pin. Obvious to a human being - but I presume any machine, Deeper Blue included, would still, like Fritz, evaluate it as won for Black.
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Comments