A New Style of Chess

Historical moments in chess are few and far between. Here are a half dozen events from the past 50 years that made a big impression on me. Almost all were World Championship matches.

• 1972 Fischer - Spassky
• 1978 Karpov - Korchnoi
• 1985 Termination of the 1st Kasparov - Karpov match
• 1992 Fischer - Spassky return match
• 1993 Kasparov - Short played outside of FIDE
• 2000 Kramnik - Kasparov

Add to these significant career events in the lives of the greatest players.

• 2005 Kasparov retires
• 2008 Fischer dies

Twenty years ago, chess engines started to take over as the best players.

• 1997 IBM's Deep Blue - Kasparov

This week we learned of another historical event.

• 2017 Google's AlphaZero - Stockfish

One of the best known chess channels on Youtube is Agadmator's. Of the five games he analyzed from the match, here's his first.

Google Deep Mind AI Alpha Zero Devours Stockfish (13:22) • 'Published on Dec 6, 2017'

Although it's still too early to measure the impact of AlphaZero's accomplishment on the future of chess, it will be profound. Earlier this year, in another episode of Video Friday, we saw Kasparov with DeepMind’s CEO Demis Hassabis: Kasparov Talks at Google (June 2017). There will certainly be more discussions to come.