17 December 2018

'I walked from one machine to the next'

From the previous post, Kasparov vs. the Early Engines, I learned that Kasparov's first significant event against computers -- as recorded on my page Garry Kasparov's Tournament, Match, and Exhibition Record -- was

1985-05 Simul, Hamburg +32-0=0

The event coincided with Kasparov's training match against German GM Robert Huebner. The introduction to Kasparov's book 'Deep Thinking: Where Machine Intelligence Ends and Human Creativity Begins' starts with a memory of that simul:-

IT WAS A PLEASANT DAY in Hamburg on June 6, 1985, but chess players rarely get to enjoy the weather. I was inside a cramped auditorium, pacing around inside a circle of tables upon which rested thirty-two chessboards. Across from me at every board was an opponent, who moved promptly when I arrived at the board in what is known as a simultaneous exhibition. "Simuls," as they are known, have been a staple of chess for centuries, a way for amateurs to challenge a champion, but this one was unique. Each of my opponents, all thirty-two of them, was a computer.'

I walked from one machine to the next, making my moves over a period of more than five hours. The four leading chess computer manufacturers had sent their top models, including eight bearing the "Kasparov" brand name from the electronics firm Saitek. One of the organizers warned me that playing against machines was different because they would never get tired or resign in dejection the way a human opponent would; they would play to the bitter end. But I relished this interesting new challenge—and the media attention it attracted. I was twenty-two years old, and by the end of the year I would become the youngest world chess champion in history. I was fearless, and, in this case, my confidence was fully justified.

Kasparov used the same event to start an earlier essay, a review of 'Chess Metaphors: Artificial Intelligence and the Human Mind' by Diego Rasskin-Gutman. From The Chess Master and the Computer (nybooks.com; February 2010):-

In 1985, in Hamburg, I played against thirty-two different chess computers at the same time in what is known as a simultaneous exhibition. I walked from one machine to the next, making my moves over a period of more than five hours. The four leading chess computer manufacturers had sent their top models, including eight named after me from the electronics firm Saitek. It illustrates the state of computer chess at the time that it didn’t come as much of a surprise when I achieved a perfect 32-0 score, winning every game, although there was an uncomfortable moment.

Note the date in the first excerpt: 6 June 1985. Exactly thirty years later Frederic Friedel of Chessbase published an article Kasparov and thirty years of computer chess (chessbase.com; June 2015):-

On June 6th 1985 the 22-year-old Garry Kasparov came to Hamburg to play a preparation match for his World Championship bid – and to do a remarkably critical interview with a leading German news magazine. During the visit he played a simul against 32 of the strongest chess computers of the day.

The event was not only significant to the history of chess playing machines, it also led to the creation of Chessbase. From ChessBase is 25 (chessbase.com; May 2011):-

It is difficult to determine the exact date when ChessBase was born. Was it when a science journalist and a future World Champion discussed computer databases? Or when a very talented programmer started to actually write one? We think it was when the two showed the prototype to the World Champion and decided, at his urging, to commercialise the product. That was May 19, 1986.

For more on the subject, see Garry Kasparov on how it all started (chessbase.com; December 2017), also by Frederic Friedel.

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