#Garry Kasparov

[disease]

Garry Kasparov, world champion chess player, succumbing to his public defeat by Deep Blue, IBM: a 'supercomputer' in development at the time. — MAY 11, 1997

[gabrielferaud]

Photo from Garry Kasparov’s website titled Karpov watching, 1985

“I know Kasparov as well as I know anyone. I know his smell. I can read him by that. I recognize the smell when he is excited and I know when he is scared. We may be enemies, but we are intimate enemies.”

Anatoly Karpov in Paul Hoffmann’s memoir King’s Gambit

[dontforgetukraine]

"We're not fighting just Putin and his cronies. We're fighting the imperial virus, and the only way to actually eradicate this virus from the minds of all the russians...is a shocking defeat."

[chessismyaesthetic]

[dadsinsuits]

Garry Kasparov

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Jonathan Nicholson at HuffPost:

Elon Musk, rocket and electric car company chief, sometime Internet troll and more recently Donald Trump’s point man for cutting alleged waste from the federal government, may be on the cusp of becoming something else: the country’s first real oligarch.

That’s according to democracy activist and former world chess champion Garry Kasparov, chairman of the New York-based Renew Democracy Initiative. Kasparov should know. As a celebrity chess prodigy in the 1980s, he tried to use his fame to buck the Communist system in Russia. Kasparov became a dissident after the Soviet Union fell, when Russian president Vladimir Putin began turning back the clock on the country’s nascent democracy. “There’s certain lessons that I think we can learn from Russia in the ’90s. The blurring of the lines between business and politics, which is called oligarchy by classical political philosophy ― it’s extremely dangerous,” Kasparov told HuffPost in a recent interview. Russia and some other post-Soviet countries, like Belarus or Kazakhstan, have struggled with democratic reforms and are run by strongmen able to subvert the law to reward their supporters and punish their opponents.

And Musk ― as both a major government contractor (by way of his companies) and now, potentially, as a Trump official with either formal or informal authority over how the government is reorganized ― could go beyond merely being wealthy and influential, Kasparov said. “Musk could be the first oligarch,” he said. “Having the largest private contractor of the U.S. government potentially being in the position of supervising the entire U.S. budget? I mean, just think about it. If this is not classical oligarchy, what is it?” “Oligarchy is not about the amount of money,” Kasparov went on. “Oligarchy is about blurring the line, erasing the line, between business and government.”

Ultimately, he said the question will hinge on whether Musk and the still nebulous Department of Government Efficiency — currently not an official agency — will operate within or outside of usual federal government ethics safeguards, and whether Musk will have to step aside from his CEO roles to run DOGE to avoid conflicts of interest. That’s because the concept of “conflicts of interest” doesn’t exist under oligarchy, he said. Official government departments can only be created by Congress, and Trump’s announcement of DOGE made it sound as if the new “department” will be only advisory in nature, at least on paper.

Chess superstar-turned-anti-authoritarianism crusader Garry Kasparov told HuffPost about the oligarchic dangers the 2nd Trump Administration will unfold, such as blurring the lines between business and politics.

[davidhudson]

Happy 61st, Garry Kasparov.

Photo by Devin Yalkin.

[elaine-of-shalott-blog]

When Garry Kasparov says to you to resign, you resign 😂

30 October 2024. Chess9LX, Saint Louis Chess Club

[papillondusoir]

REMATCH | Bande-annonce | ARTE Séries

[deborahdeshoftim5779]

Putin tried and failed to murder Navalny quickly and secretly with poison, and now he has murdered him slowly and publicly in prison. He was killed for exposing Putin and his mafia as the crooks and thieves they are. My thoughts are with the brave man's wife and children.

Garry Kasparov, responding to the murder of Alexei Navalny by Putin's terrorist regime.

[porterdavis]

[whateverbrunettewants]

“I believe it's essential to push the boundaries and constantly widen the angle of the lens we use to view the world.” Garry Kasparov

[gabrielferaud]

Garry Kasparov shakes the hand of an IBM team member after losing his rematch against the Deep Blue computer program, 1997

[bondshotel]

Top 20 Reasons Why Garry Kasparov is the Greatest Chess Player of All Time

1. Remarkable Championship Reign: Held the World Chess Championship title for 15 years from 1985 to 2000.

2. First to achieve a rating over 2800, peaking at 2851 in 1999—a record that stood for over 15 years.

3. The youngest ever to become a World Champion at the age of 22.

4. Maintained the highest rating in the world for 20 years, from 1984 to 2004.

5. Set a record for the most consecutive tournament victories at the highest level.

6. Dominance Over Top Players: Achieved a winning record against numerous world-class players.

7. Revolutionized opening theory, particularly with the Sicilian Defense and Kings Indian Defense

8. Defended his title multiple times against top challengers.

9. Most Wins Against World Champions: Kasparov achieved a record streak of victories over reigning and former World Champions.

10. Impactful Match Against Deep Blue: The 1997 match against IBM’s Deep Blue was historic in chess history.

11. Record in World Championship Games: Kasparov holds the record for the most games played in World Chess Championship matches, with 144 games across his career.

12. Pioneering Use of Technology: First to integrate computer analysis into preparation effectively.

13. Rapid and Blitz Dominance: Excelled in rapid and blitz formats, winning multiple championships.

14. Influential Author: His book My Great Predecessors is essential for understanding chess evolution.

15. Record Against World Champions: Held favorable scores against multiple World Champions.

16. Influence on Chess Ratings: His peak rating significantly shaped the Elo rating system.

17. Mentor to Champions: Guided top players like Magnus Carlsen and Vladimir Kramnik.

18. High Winning Percentage: Maintained a remarkable winning percentage against top-level competition.

19. Unyielding Pursuit of Number One: For Kasparov, second place was never an option; his ambition to be number one defined his career.

20. Impactful Legacy: His pursuit of excellence and groundbreaking achievements continue to inspire chess players worldwide.

[chessismyaesthetic]

Happy birthday Viswanathan "Vishy" Anand!

Vishy Anand, one of my favourite commentators from recent World Championships (he just seems like such a lovely guy and his analysis is always interesting and well explained), is an Indian chess grandmaster and a former five-time World Chess Champion. The FIRST grandmaster from India (he won the title in 1988) which is hard to believe given how many great Indian chess players there are now, he has the 8th highest peak FIDE raiting of all time. He remains the only player to have won the World Chess Championship in tournament, match, and knockout format, as well as rapid time controls.

Vishy playing Kasparov, 1995.

As a teenager people called him "Lightning Kid" for his rapid playing speed, and later GMs who faced him often described him as one of the all-time greats alongside Garry Kasparov (a logical comparison given the schism in the World Championship and the fact most top GMs would have played both so could compare).

As a lightning fast teenager in the 1980s.

Wikipedia describes him as "a well-liked figure throughout the chess world for two decades, evidenced by the fact that Kasparov, Kramnik, and Carlsen, all of whom were rivals for the world championship during Anand's career, each aided him in his preparations for the 2010 World Chess Championship" which is something I massively admire in sports people - the seemingly rare ability to be a top competitor AND be nice to people.

Check out his game 6 win against Karpov in the 1998 World Championship match for a great win at an important moment. Karpov had won the first four games, Vishy made a draw in game 5, and NEEDED to win. So what does he do? He plays the Trompowsky Attack (1. d4 Nf6 2. Bg5) - rarely seen at GM level - and wins in 42 moves! Seriously, go google and admire. Sadly (for me at least since I'm a fan) he lost the WC in the tiebreaker games and didn't manage to become World Champion until two years later when he became the first world champion from Asia and the first world champion from outside the ex-Soviet Union since Bobby Fischer.

Anand v. Kramnik at the 2008 World Championship, game 3.

OR check out game 3 of his World Championship match against Kramnik in 2008. Here Vishy has the black pieces playing against Kramnik's Queen's Gambit Declined - they go into a really tactically sharp line known as the Blumenfeld Attack (this is part of the Semi-Slav defence, classical merin variation if you want to look it up). On move 14 Vishy plays a novelty - a new idea - that Kramnik needs to refute if he's to win. Vishy's idea is to just give up a pawn (which is usually defended) in favour of attacking the white king. Two pawns down, Vishy rejects the possibility of a draw and goes on the attack with Kramnik's king on the run. It's exciting stuff and unbelievably tense when you imagine the WC conditions they were playing in!

Vishy about to beat defending champion Magnus Carlsen in Game 3 of the 2014 World Chess Championship in Sochi.

His career is way too long and too well documented to be worth going into any greater detail - google is your friend here - but what a great player. Well worth delving into his games, not least as he was one of the first to embrace computer prep so that alone is an interesting development.

[bopinion]

2024 / 10

Aperçu of the Week:

"When will conservatives understand that climate protection is conservative because it preserves. When will liberals understand that climate protection is liberal because it secures freedoms and when will social democrats understand that climate protection is social because it protects the weakest in society the most?"

(Ingwar Perowanowitsch - German activist, blogger and political journalist)

Bad News of the Week:

Thousands of Russians are not letting the arbitrary arrests by the police stop them from publicly mourning opposition figure Alexei Navalny, who (it has to be said exactly like this) was killed by the Kremlin. Flowers are piling up at his grave in the Borisovskoye cemetery in the south-east of Moscow and no one is afraid to show their tears. A different face of Russia can be seen here. Vladimir Putin has created a classic martyr who was prepared to go to his death for his belief in the cause.

A second critic with reach has now also been taken out of the game: the former world chess champion Garry Kasparov, who is also widely known in the West, has found himself on a list of "terrorists and extremists" for a few days now. He has already been listed as a "foreign agent". This shot could also backfire, and here too a great deal of solidarity can be expected from better-informed and more critical sections of the Russian population. But will it do any good? No.

As there are only puppets of the power apparatus on the committee responsible, there is no real alternative to Putin in the presidential elections due to take place in the next few days. This will be just as much an alibi event as the last elections. Which won't even bother the majority of the electorate. After all, outside the metropolitan areas, this majority consumes almost exclusively state-controlled media. And they get what they want: a strong man at the top who knows what's going on.

One insight from this is the same as that gained from the ever more firmly cemented status of Xi Jinping in China, who, like Putin, wields almost dictatorial power without any checks and balances, let alone a corrective: Democracy begins above all with information. Only if independent media observe and comment on political events can voters form an informed opinion. And then press for these opinions to be heard and acted upon. In the form of a genuine opportunity to vote - the keyword is "people's representatives". Unfortunately, more and more nations are further away from this ideal as ever. In a world that could actually be more enlightened than ever before in its history. But people are obviously too comfortable for that. And probably also too stupid.

Good News of the Week:

It was "Super Tuesday" already a few days ago. And it went like expected. As did the following pre-elections. Two guys who are too old were elected by a massive margin. Because this nation simply hasn't managed to build worthy successors - neither the Republicans nor the Democrats. While the former will indeed euphorically nominate a notorious liar and cheat for the most powerful office in the world, the latter seem to simply resign themselves to their fate: if an incumbent seeks re-election, they concede it to him. Even if his approval ratings are subterranean and his physical capacity is at least questionable.

Let's be clear: if the majority goes to Donald Trump in November - and it will probably go to him if the numbers are to be believed - the Democrats should not complain about it. Because they are to blame. There is only one politician who is currently in an even worse position than Joe Biden. And that is Kamala Harris. She is not yet officially running mate. But since it has never seemed so likely that a vice-president would have to take the helm during a term of office, these two are a duo infernale. A team that nobody wants. Even if that may seem unfair or unjustified.

Donald Trump and Viktor Orbán have just met as autocrats in Mar-a-Lago. Trump publicly admires the fact that Orban is a dictator. What he says happens, "he's the boss". And Orbán hails Trump as the "president of peace", with whom there would be neither the Ukraine nor the Gaza war. Par ordre du mufti. A clear rejection of democracy. Which Biden takes to the extreme by stylizing the upcoming election as a decision for or against democracy. And he is right.

The situation is frightening for us Europeans. We look across the Atlantic with the morbid fascination of a car crash that is clearly on the horizon. And which can no longer be prevented. The whole world was surprised by Trump's last election victory, including himself. I remember exactly how I heard about Trump's 2016 election victory on the radio in the morning and thought that I must still be dreaming. In a way, I was right, because Trump was and is a nightmare.

And that makes Super Tuesday good news in the context of its negative circumstances. Because now we know pretty much exactly what we are in for at the beginning of next year. The whole world will suffer from Trump's ignorant "America First" attitude - politically, economically, in terms of security policy and also morally. But we have been warned, we know it. And we can now prepare ourselves for at least nine months of serious damage for the cooperative US-European axis. And the US democratic establishment is to blame. This swamp should have been drained.

Personal happy moment of the week:

For our stay in Montréal with the children in late summer, we got a great loft in a great neighborhood. Having never booked anything on AirBnB before, the host didn't want us at first - he'd had bad experiences with newcomers who were apparently also being rated on this platform. My wife then had two arguments that convinced him that we wouldn't mess up his loft: she was traveling with Germans, the tidiest people in the world. And she was the daughter of a policeman. That worked.

I couldn't care less...

...that Boeing can't get out of a maelstrom of technical defects and quality deficiencies. As a European, I prefer Airbus anyway.

It's fine with me...

...that Jon Stewart is back as host of The Daily Show. For all his humor - and how that guy always makes me laugh - he's actually a sharp-tongued political commentator and investigative journalist who uses the stylistic device of satire to put a non-partisan finger in every wound he finds. Very good.

As I write this...

...I'm listening to songs by Bob Geldof & The Boomtown Rats. Because I realized that although I can really relate to "Tell me why I don't like Mondays", I don't know anything else by these musicians. It's just dawned on me why... Which doesn't change the fact that I think Live Aid and Band Aid ("Do they know it's Christmas?") were and still are great.

Post Scriptum

The strikes on German public transport continue. Just recently there were no trains for two days and the airports also had to close for two days because of the ground staff. Now, in the following week, there will not only be a strike by Lufthansa on-board staff, but so-called "wave strikes" will also begin on the railroads. These are announced at most 24 hours in advance so that it is - on purpose! - difficult to prepare for them. So the necessary "mobility turnaround" will certainly not happen. Why do we increasingly have the feeling that these labor disputes are being carried out on the backs of the passengers?