Chess
Mariana
David Levy
As 1 am writing this article at the Chess Olympiad in Buenos Aires, where everr thing happens mahana (literally `tornor• row', but in reality meaning 'in the, future'), I shall concentrate on some o
i '
the more interesting and important future happenings in world chess. Next week, i.e. martana, I shall report more fully nn the Olympiad itself, where England are leading after three rounds with 91 P°itits from 11 games, plus one adjourned. Chess fans everywhere are no doubt rejoicing at the news that Bobby Fischer is returning to the chess arena after an absence of more than six years. The Yugoslav Grandmaster Svetozar Gligoric has confirmed that he will play a match with Fischer, probably in Belgrade, beginning early next year or perhaps evert in mid-December. Fischer will receive .11 minimum of £500,000 and the match Will be played under conditions very similar to those which Fischer wanted in 1975
when he was due to defend his title against Karpov.
Fischer will be referred to as the 'Undefeated World Champion', and anY mention of Karpov will refer to him asr 'FIDE World Champion'. The games ni the match will be played in a closed room, with only the arbiters present, and the moves will be relayed to the audien via an immobile television camera. Witnce ever is the first to score ten wins, dra0. not counting, will win the match, but if the score reaches 9-9 the target will .be increased from ten wins to twelve. Five games will be played each week and the rate of play will be increased to fort)", moves in the first two hours, instead two and a half hours which is normal In international competition.
It ishoped that Fischer's return rn
chess will shortly be followed by a 11011title match against Karpov. (Since Fischer has disassociated himself from FIDE there would seem to be little chance of a match for the World Championship and the chess world will probably come to resemble the international boxing arena, Where it is quite possible to have two world champions at one time.) Many experts argue that six years is too !Ong to be away from serious competition, but I would expect Fischer to bear Ghgoric rather easily and Korchnoi himself has said that he thinks Bobby could win a match against himself or karpov, Of even greater importance to mankind is the prospect that within a decade or two the world chess champion may well he a computer program. Progress in this tield has been so great during the past two years that my recent match against the reigning World Computer Champion, Chess 4.7, was far More difficult for me than I had dreamed possible when I started my famous wager ten years ago. The match was played at the Canadian National Exhibition in Toronto, where I Was seated in a soundproofed booth and forced to wear a dinner suit, much to the arnusement of most of the onlookers. The Program was running on a Control Data Cy.her 176 computer, which played from Minnesota via an open telephone line. ,We used a specially designed electronic board which detected my moves by Means of a number of magnetic sensitive sWitches situated beneath the squares. When the program was ready to reply it would switch on lights on the `from' square and the to' square to show the path of the moving piece. In the first game of the match I underestimated a piece sacrifice, which left the program with an overwhelming position. It was only after it had tied itself up in knots that the program failed to win an ending three pawns up. In the second and third games I successfully employed my anti-computer strategy, which involves doing nothing, but doing it very carefully and waiting for the program to compromise its position. I then needed only another half-point from the remaining three games to tie the match and win my £1,250 bet, so I decided to experiment by playing the program at what it does best. I attempted to out-analyse it in forced variations and to ignore strategic considerations. The experiment proved that I had been too rash — I lost the game after overlooking various moves which the program had seen. For the fifth game of the match I reverted to my `do nothing strategy and scored the following win. In my opinion it would be rather difficult for most players to tell who was the International Master and which was the computer program!
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