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Where to begin? In this press release Einstein basically says they have failed to find a sponsor for the Kramnik-Leko classical world championship match. This is the confirmation of what we knew (else they would have announced one), but it's a good and honorable thing for Einstein to announce this instead of keeping the world wondering and the journalists wondering if they will have to dash off to Budapest on short notice.
I wish the good people of Einstein the best of luck in and out of chess. The idea of a company trying to make money from chess didn't pan out. The only model that has worked has been investing in chess for publicity (see X3D and their events). Trying to make cash from chess has been a bust at that level.
As I mentioned in DD 93, this leaves the door open for Carsten Hensel. He represents both Leko and Kramnik and in today's interview at ChessBase.com he sounds confident of finding sponsorship for the match himself. No doubt. I'd be shocked if Hensel didn't have Plan B, C, and W already in mind. It doesn't seem unreasonable to assume that a player's representative might think the best thing would be to wait until the Einstein contract expired. If Einstein can't put anything on the table, why give them a piece of the pie, the logic would go.
I expect a polite mourning period and then a Kramnik-Leko announcement in July for a match in December. It seems unlikely that the name Einstein will be attached to it in more than name only. Migstradamus has spoken!
I do wonder if both players having the same business representative helps or hinders the match. I would assume Leko's financial demands would be much less than Kramnik's. He wants a shot at the title, Kramnik already has it. But there won't be any pressure put on since one guy is handling the negotiations for both sides, so it comes down to what he is happy with.
Argentina just inaugurated a new president, and it looks like this one will stick around for a while. He's the sixth in 18 months, but this is a formal transition after an election. Chess fan Duhalde is out and Nestor Kirchner is in. One of the last things Duhalde signed, apparently, is approval for state financial support of the rescheduled (Novemberish) Kasparov-Ponomariov FIDE world championship match in Buenos Aires.
The new vice-president of Argentina, Daniel Scioli, was a famous boat racer. He also claims to love to play chess, and to have played many times with Duhalde! (In this interview.) This would seem to be a good omen. But back in the 90's he was on a sports commission where he had several conflicts with GM Miguel Quinteros, one of the main organizers of Kasparov-Ponomariov. Not a problem, I hope. Scioli supported chess when he was the tourism and sports secretary, his previous job.
The latest rumor (god forbid someone from FIDE go on the record or make an official release) is that a $1 million guarantee from the Argentine organizers has been paid to FIDE.
So even if everything goes perfectly from now on (ha ha), unification is a year away at best. If there is no Leko-Kramnik match this year it may be irrelevant. FIDE might just declare that they can't wait any longer, at least assuming that their own plans go forward. The sides have taken turns accusing the other of breaking with the Prague reunification accords.
Sources say FIDE is close to making the new November dates for Kasparov-Ponomariov official. (This might be news to a few hermits without access to the DD.) All the delays in announcing the postponement have earned FIDE considerable ill will from journalists who need to have travel expenses and plans approved months in advance. If they don't think this hurts media attendance at future events they are very, very wrong. A free tip to them for next time: funding first, big press conference second.
From the esteemed magazine Psychology Today: "Chess: Not All About Logic? Spatial processing may be the key to a good game. Chess is not necessarily a game reserved for people with IQ scores on par with Einstein. In fact, chess strategy may rely more heavily on spatial processing than on logic and computational skills."
Doh. The research mentioned in the short article is based on doing MRI scans of amateur players' brains while they are playing. This is an interesting, but hardly a groundbreaking theory. From de Groot's many studies to the opinion of just about any chess coach you meet, spatial relationships and pattern recognition are the main elements of most "chess thought." Are these scientists really ignorant of all the prior research in this area? But it is interesting to have so much theory backed up by a brain scan. Next they should scan some Masters and compare their brain activity to the amateurs in their study. In most studies these are very different things.
Strangely enough I had a conversation about this two nights ago at a charity dinner hosted by the marvelous people at X3D Technologies, the company that made the Kasparov-Deep Junior match happen in January. A friend and chess tyro asked me and top coaches GM Lev Alburt and IM Michael Khodarkovsky if we saw "quadrants or triangles" on the board. A bit of a silly question, but we all agreed that an aptitude for applying geometric and spatial concepts is essential and a good indicator of talent in students.
Coming to a monitor near you on May 28 and on the fourth Wednesday of every month after that: I am starting a new column dedicated to ChessBase software at the ChessCafe.com website. As explained in the weekly Chess Cafe newsletter:
Next week, on May 28, ChessCafe.com will begin a regular monthly column dedicated to the use and enjoyment of the many ChessBase products. It will be called ChessBase Cafe and will feature none other than Mig Greengard helping you use the world's best chess software to your best advantage. Mig's entertaining writing style has long been a favorite of chessplayers and he now brings his wit and expertise to ChessCafe.com. He will take occasional questions from readers and also provide free email tech support to ChessCafe readers who purchase their ChessBase software here. Don't miss ChessBase Cafe by Mig Greengard, debuting next week, May 28.
I'd blush, but I'm a shameless glutton for flattery. I'm hoping it will be entertaining even for you malcontents who have yet to purchase something from ChessBase. It's an honor to take a place among the many talented columnists at ChessCafe.com.
Repeated inquiries by various parties have resulted in no official word on the world championship matches to be. Einstein isn't saying anything about Kramnik-Leko. Rumors say Budapest has hit the rocks.
FIDE has not responded to questions. Meanwhile, two different sources in Argentina say Kasparov-Ponomariov will happen at the end of the year. One even gave a starting date, December 9! A Russian source says November, which is the first postponement rumor I reported a few weeks ago. That about sums things up. No official word about whether it will happen or not, but the rumors are getting more specific! Next we'll be hearing they've already drawn for colors.
The FIDE calendar still says it will start June 19, the original dates...
From sources around the world, some in print, some by phone, some by Speckled Jim.
Argentine organizer of the Kasparov-Ponomariov match, GM Miguel Quinteros, has been back in the news saying that the match is back on for June. He has also been quoted as saying he was contacted by someone from the organization of the Kramnik-Leko match about hosting it in Buenos Aires. This has been denied by Einstein.
This makes me assume that the manager of both Leko and Kramnik, Carsten Hensel, has been fishing in Rio de la Plata. He has said that he will give Einstein every chance to organize the match, but it would make sense to keep his eyes open. He may believe he can find a sponsor without Einstein's overhead. Kramnik has a contract with Einstein, but I don't know what it would be worth if they can't put a match together.
The Moscow News says something about Einstein turning down Budapest because they don't want to spend money in Eastern Europe, and that they have sought Dubai as a host. Their casting a wide net is to be expected. But I doubt they are turning anyone down if the money is right.
One of the curious things about this latest round of rumors is how much FIDE is talking about the Kramnik-Leko match. I'm not sure what to think about this apparent change of heart. I had thought they would be happy to let it die if Einstein couldn't put it together, but several FIDE people have talked about hosting the match together with the Kasparov-Ponomariov match. I guess that would be a coup of sorts, and two matches aren't much more expensive than one, other than the prize funds, which are probably dropping daily.
I think part of this is Kasparov wanting a shot another shot at Kramnik. The politicians find it easy to ignore the past, but a man who is releasing a series of books called "My Great Predecessors" (Everyman Chess) and who majored in history cannot. Although Kasparov has stated he believes Kramnik's title has expired since he was obliged to defend it in 2002, he badly wants to beat Kramnik in a match. Of course he'll take Leko if the Hungarian manages to beat Kramnik. Kasparov thinks often of his legacy and it would be Hollywood Goes to Baku if the 40-year-old recaptured the unified title he was the last man to hold.
Yet another log has been tossed on the fire of computer chess related artificial intelligence writing. Yawn. This facile piece is a summary of human-machine matches with a few usual stabs about whether or not chess-playing machines are "thinking." Yaaaaaawn. Almost none of it will be new to you, most of it repeats the basic facts, although prefacing many with "rumored to.." in case he gets it wrong.
This doesn't help eliminate a dozen or so factual errors, but we're used to those by now. Even when non-chess writers bother to ask experts (not the case here) they often get it wrong before it makes it to the page. It's hard to write about something as technical as chess when you don't have the background. Knights become bishops, as in this article's description of Kramnik-Fritz match game six. The description of Kasparov-Junior game three is farcical (also game 5). Even when 90% of the information is rehashed, the wrong assumptions are made in the remaining 10%.
The rest of the article is occasionally correct history of chess programming, inaccurately summarized in most cases. Bizarre things like, "It’s the optimization of a chess program rather than the evaluation algorithm that affects the playing manner" are aplenty. And nonsense like, "Having played for a while against chess programs, I came to my own recipe: try to make the best move possible in every situation. When you just make a move that looks like good, without any plan in mind, it may bring you to trouble against the computer." Huh?
And to make his points about how computers don't understand some positions as well as humans he uses a purely tactical example. (Heissler-Kasimdzhanov, 1999). True, it's a deep combination that some programs take a while to find, but others, like Junior 7, find ..Re4 in a few minutes on my machine. Bad example.
It is with the usual sense of curiosity, elation, and horror that we read the news that another millionaire is trying to drag Bobby Fischer out from under his rock. The Mainz organizers were smart enough to call their shuffle chess events "Chess960" instead of "Fischerandom" but now they are trying to bring the man himself?
ChessBase has a translation of a German newspaper article about this that is part breathless and mostly erroneous. (Claiming Fischer invented shuffle chess, an ancient variant, although even some chess fans think this. That there is an "international arrest warrant" out for Fischer, which is untrue. (It's in the USA.) It's not as if he's in hiding if he's still getting checks and making radio appearances.)
They probably just want the publicity of Fischer's name. Be careful what you ask, the old saying goes. If he actually did show up in Mainz it would be a complete fiasco, of course, just like his last appearances. Fischer sightings (or rumors of them) put chess in the news, but anti-Semitic paranoid schizophrenics are not the publicity chess needs. Maybe the Mainz people could offer to pay for his medical and psychiatric care instead. Why give Fischer a stage from which to spew his hatred? Why use chess as a pretext to hand him a microphone to cheer the 9/11 attacks again?
Here's a link to his website, with a very serious warning about how offensive most people will find the content and profane language. It's still being updated with links about China dated April 13, 2003. Very scary, very sad. Actually, it makes me wonder if Fischer might be arrested for hate speech if he did his usual routine in Germany. They have very strict laws about that sort of thing in Germany.