November 2003 Archives

The ESPN2 broadcasts of the Kasparov-X3D Fritz match were a big success by any standard. The only complaints I've heard are from chess fans who, while delighted to see chess on TV and live coverage no less, were disappointed by the "light" chess content. Most of the talk was about Kasparov's psychology and how much time each move took. In other words, things that non-players could understand

GM Seirawan was the go-to analyst to give variations, but little was shown that would interest even a club player. The reason for this is obvious; the broadcast goes out to the lowest common denominator and they try to make it at least comprehensible to everyone. Chess fans will watch anyway and get the more serious commentary online or read it on the web later.

ESPN was scrambling to think of interesting graphics, statistics, and other things to inform and entertain the audience, with mixed success. Pieces captured: useless and boring. Time taken per move: good. (My father, who taught me to play but should be considered a non-player for our purposes, found this very interesting.) They should have amplified this with Bronstein's "chess cardiograms," which the Fritz interface can generate automatically anyway. They also should have done much more with the computer's own evaluation of the position. I have a long list of suggestions for better TV chess and I'm sure you have some too. I'll be putting an article about this up on ChessBase.com this week so send me your suggestions.

It's been hard to find time for the Dirt while running the x3dchess.com website and doing the live online commentary at the match. But I've been storing up lots and lots of good stuff for when I catch up on my sleep! We'll have dozens of exclusive photos from behind the scenes, plus:

• Inside the ESPN broadcast, or, the joy of not going to the bathroom for many, many hours.
  
• The mystery of X3D Fritz's opening in game three, or, why would it play something that earlier versions of the program were forbidden to play?
  
• Who's on second, or, a conversation with Kasparov's analysts, Yuri Dokhoian and Mikhail Kobalia here in New York.
  
• The Great Ninja Party, or, what happens when you toss a bunch of Ninja, chess stars, and adult beverages together?
  
• The future of chess on TV, or, surely this beats bass fishing.

On the way to the airport to head to New York for the Kasparov-X3D Fritz match, some members of the ChessBase Fritz team had to stop by their offices in Hamburg first to pick up some tablebase CDs and a laptop. When they arrived they found the building surrounded by heavily armed police. The building had been robbed and they police weren't letting anyone go inside.

"But we have to catch a flight to go play a match against Kasparov," they told the police. The thieves were believed to still be inside and, as the saying goes, armed and dangerous. Eventually they negotiated a SWAT escort up to ChessBase office, which was found to be completely destroyed and looted. The thieves had smashed their way in with a heavy metal manhole cover and taken every computer in the place other than the server, which was bolted in.

The laptop was gone and there were CDs all over the place. They decided it was better just to leave, but the police said they had to stay and fill out reports. Inventing some story about needing a key from the car downstairs, they walked out, got in the car and drove to the airport! No word as yet on whether or not the thieves have been captured and/or the computers recovered.

Also unknown is if the the bandits were speaking Russian. Maybe Garry really wanted to make sure he had the the latest version of X3D Fritz?! On a serious note, to our knowledge no one was hurt.

It's hard to keep things updated around here now that the Kasparov-X3D Fritz match is about underway. I'm running the official site, www.x3dchess.com and doing live online commentary there during the games. It will be a lot of fun so I hope you have internet access at work since the games start at 1:00pm EST.

You can also watch the games live on ESPN2 (a separate channel) with commentary by GMs Seirawan and Ashley plus writer Paul Hoffman. Initial announcements said they would carry five hours of the games on the 11, 13, and 18, with 2.5 hours of coverage of the Sunday game on the 16th, making 17.5 total hours. But now that the event is listed at the ESPN website it shows far less time.

It's listed as "2003 MAN VS. MACHINE WORLD CHESS CHAMPIONSHIP
NEW YORK ATHLETIC CLUB NEW YORK, NY USA". The listings show 1-4pm on Tue, 1-3pm on Thu, 1-2:30pm on Sun, and 1-4pm on Tue.

That makes, umm, 9.5 hours total if it goes as scheduled. More relevantly, it's extremely unlikely that any of the games will be completed on TV! No exciting time scrambles either. The ESPN producer seemed unaware of this, although they said they would show updates throughout the day.