Aryeh Davidoff: In his 200 Words column at pakchess.com Lev Khariton
asserts that Kasparov's 3rd game against Fritz was a far cry from
top-level chess. Besides, Kasparov was simply following in Tigran
Petrosian's footsteps!

In his recent interview to the newspaper "Kommercant" Kasparov poses
an obviously rhetoric question:
"Was it a bad game?". Understandably, he means his 3rd game against
Fritz. Then he goes on: "I knew that machine would never move, even
under the threat of sudden death, his king-side pawns. Because the
program stipulates that his king should be well protected. I also knew
what would happen after Rb2 – machine would make aimless maneuvers…"

Yes, it was a bad game and no matter how much publicity the game
received in the media, Kasparov will never convince us that it was his
masterpiece. "His attaché de press" grandmaster Sergei Shipov trying
to serve his boss knows quite well that it was a mediocre game, an
artificial game. I do not know whether it was a prearranged game (or
prearranged match?) but what Fritz demonstrated in this game was a far
cry from any other game of this match or any game played, say, by
Deeper Blue in the 1997 match.

Quite typically, Shipov concludes his annotations on Game 3:"The
operators of Fritz acknowledged the defeat of the machine.
Surprisingly enough, Fritz was quite optimistic about its position
(according to the machine was slightly better) up to the last moves…"
What kind of a chess rival is Fritz? And why didn't Kasparov win all
the four games?
As to Kasparov's king promenade, I offer to our chess readers another
game played by Tigran Petrosian in Hamburg in 1960 against grandmaster
Wolfgang Unziker. When making publicity stunts about his king's
"unique odyssey", Kasparov should have mentioned that game: the patent
is certainly not his! Why did he forget about one of his
"predecessors"?

T.Petrosian – W.Unziker (Hamburg, 1960)

White:Kg1,Qb5,Rc1,Rc6,Nb3 pp.a4,b2,d4,e3,f2,g3,h2.
Black:Kg7,Qa8,Rd8,Ra7,Bd6 pp.a5,b4,d5,e6,f7,g6,h6.

Just look how Petrosian won this game!
29.Kf1! Kg8 30.h4 h5 31.R1c2 Kh7 32.Ke1! Kg8 33.Kd1! Kh7 34.Kc1! Kg8
35.Kb1! Kh7 36.Qe2 Qb7 37.Rc1 Kg7 38.Qb5 Qa8 39.f4 Kh7 40.Qe2 Qb7
41.g4 hxg4 42.Qxg4 Qe7 43.h5 Qf6 44.Ka2 Kg7 45.hxg6 Qxg6 46.Qh4 Be7
47.Qf2 Kf8 48.Nd2 Rb7 49.Nb3 Ra7 50.Qh2 Bf6 51.Rc8 Rad7 52.Nc5 b3+
53.Kxb3 Rd6 54.f5 Rb6+ 55.Ka2. Black resigned.

"Aryeh Davidoff" wrote in message
om...

Surprisingly enough, Fritz was quite optimistic about its position
(according to the machine was slightly better) up to the last moves."

Who was slighly better : Fritz ?? ;-)

T.Petrosian - W.Unziker (Hamburg, 1960)
Black resigned.

You know it`s an unadequate example because both Petrossian and Unzicker
were surely human.

BTW Of course the 3rd game was an one-sided spectacle but nonetheless very
instructive.

Double regards,
Jerzy

I think most of us prefer to use the phrase "masterpiece" to describe a
game where both players performed brilliantly, or, at the very least,
the winner showed phenominal imaginative or calculating abilities to
find a win where others wouldn't.

I don't think that game fits in either category. Kasparov's game was a
monument to anti-computer technique, but he neither revolutionized nor
created that technique for beating computers.

Kasparov deserves credit for such an elegant, apparantly simple win,
but I don't think anybody feels that's a game that only he could have
played.

-Ron