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It's Interesting That The Greatest Minds Of Computer Science, The Founding Fathers, Like Alan Turing And Claude Shannon And Norbert Wiener, They All Looked At Chess As The Ultimate Test. So They Thought, "oh, If A Machine Can Play Chess, And Beat Strong Players, Set Aside A World Champion, That Would Be The Sign Of A Dawn Of The Ai Era." With All Due Respect, They Were Wrong.

-Garry Kasparov

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It's Interesting That The

Garry Kasparov

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It's Interesting That The Greatest Minds Of Computer Science, The Founding Fathers, Like Alan Turing And Claude Shannon And Norbert Wiener, They All Looked At Chess As The Ultimate Test. So They Thought, "oh, If A Machine Can Play Chess, And Beat Strong Players, Set Aside A World Champion, That Would Be The Sign Of A Dawn Of The Ai Era." With All Due Respect, They Were Wrong.

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I'm Not Saying That George W. Bush Did Everything Right. But Even If You Take A Skeptical View Of His Iraq War, [barack] Obama Made The More Serious Error Of Withdrawing His Troops From Iraq Early.

All Experiments That Are Related To The Games When You Have Humans Versus Machines In The Games - Whether It's Chess Or "go" Or Any Other Game - Machines Will Prevail Not Because They Can Solve The Game. Chess Is Mathematically Unsolvable. But At The End Of The Day, The Machine Doesn't Have To Solve The Game. The Machine Has To Win The Game. And To Win The Game, It Just Has To Make Fewer Mistakes Than Humans. Which Is Not That Difficult Since Humans Are Humans And Vulnerable, And We Don't Have The Same Steady Hand As The Computer.

Putin Is Like Al Capone.

In Armenia, The Power De Facto Belongs To Those Who Opted To Take Violent Action In Karabakh. We Are Dealing With A Military Dictatorship That Utilizes Some Kind Of Democratic Procedures.

The Worst Enemy Of The Strategist Is The Clock. Time Trouble... Reduces Us All To Pure Reflex And Reaction, Tactical Play. Emotion And Instinct Cloud Our Strategic Vision When There Is No Time For Proper Evaluation.

By Strictly Observing Botvinnik's Rule Regarding The Thorough Analysis Of One's Own Games, With The Years I Have Come To Realize That This Provides The Foundation For The Continuous Development Of Chess Mastery.

It Didn't Take Long To Recognise The Shortcomings Of The Soviet Regime And To See The Values Of The Free World.

If We Look At Statistical Data, We See That Protestant Countries In Terms Of Economic Development Are More Successful Than Those Observing Catholicism.

I Feel That My Chess Strengths Are Still Here, .. I Believe I Can Still Improve.

This Is The Essential Element That Cannot Be Measured By Any Analysis Or Device, And I Believe It's At The Heart Of Success In All Things: The Power Of Intuition And The Ability To Harness And Use It Like A Master.

You Can't Overestimate The Importance Of Psychology In Chess, And As Much As Some Players Try To Downplay It, I Believe That Winning Requires A Constant And Strong Psychology Not Just At The Board But In Every Aspect Of Your Life.

Donald Trump Is A Catalyst. People Care Now In A Way They Didn't. The American Institutions Were Rusting; Now They Are Being Revitalised. Trump Is A Lightning Rod. They Are Getting Engaged And The American Liberal Media That Spent Too Much Time On Pc Issues Can Focus On Vladimir Putin And Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

My Mother Lives In Moscow, And I Would Like To Visit Her. Now She Always Has To Travel To Finland Or A Baltic Country To Meet Me. But I Have To Expect That My Papers Would Be Confiscated In Moscow Immediately, And That They Would Harass My Family. I Can Still Have More Impact In The West With My Books And Lectures.

Chess Helps You To Concentrate, Improve Your Logic. It Teaches You To Play By The Rules And Take Responsibility For Your Actions, How To Problem Solve In An Uncertain Environment.

I'm Not Paranoid, But I Am Cautious. I Don't Drink Tea With Strangers, I Don't Fly Aeroflot And I Avoid Certain Countries With Close Ties To Russia.

If You Don't Take Risks, You Don't Drink Champagne.

For Young Players, Their Minds Are Not Overloaded. I Am 54 With Four Kids And I Do Many Other Things. Even If I Stopped Everything Else, Spent Months Working Just On Chess, For A Long Match Against Most Of The Top Players, A Classical Match, Six Hours, Say, I Don't Stand A Chance. I Have A Better Chance In Shorter Matches. Rapid Is 25 Minutes, Or Blitz Events Where You Have Five Minutes To Make A Move, Or Bullet Games, Where It Is One Minute. For Blitz, Five-minutes Chess, I Would Be Top Ten, Top Five. But Longer Games, No Chance.

Like Dvoretsky, I Think That (all Other Things Being Equal), The Analytical Method Of Studying Chess Must Give You A Colossal Advantage Over The Chess Pragmatist, And That There Can Be No Certainty In Chess Without Analysis. I Personally Acquired These Views From My Sessions With Mikhail Botvinnik, And They Laid The Foundations Of My Chess-playing Life.

There Are Many Ways Of Showing Your Protest And Discontent Without The Actions Of Kremlin.

Barack Obama Took Over After Vladimir Putin's First Aggression, In Georgia. In 2009, He Did The Reset Policy Because They Had These Stupid Ideas About Former President Dmitry Medvedev. They Thought He Would Be The Leader, Not Putin. Everyone Played This Game With Medvedev As Their Bet, Berlin, Paris, London, The Idea Of Smoothly Transferring To Something More Acceptable. It Was Always A Charade, A Putin Project To Solidify His Power And Come Back After Four Years Of Nominal Occupation Of The Office By Medvedev.

At A Certain Point, The Atmosphere In The West Could Change. But I Don't See Determined Political Will [for That] At The Moment.

Recognise That The Free World Is At War With Putin, And America Is The Leader Of The Free World And Should Build The Coalition Against Him. It Is Similar To What Harry Truman Did In The Forties. They Have To Oppose The Threat That Comes From Putin And Other Dictators.

Many So-called Pragmatists Want Nothing To Do With Space Exploration Or Other Kinds Of Ambitious Endeavours That Don't Have A Clear Payoff. This Mentality Is Hugely Damaging To Our Success As A Civilization. Our Desire To Understand The Universe Is Kindled By Curiosity And Wonder, And This Has Fuelled Countless Scientific Breakthroughs.

Ultimately, What Separates A Winner From A Loser At The Grandmaster Level Is The Willingness To Do The Unthinkable. A Brilliant Strategy Is, Certainly, A Matter Of Intelligence, But Intelligence Without Audaciousness Is Not Enough. Given The Opportunity, I Must Have The Guts To Explode The Game, To Upend My Opponent's Thinking And, In So Doing, Unnerve Him. So It Is In Business: One Does Not Succeed By Sticking To Convention. When Your Opponent Can Easily Anticipate Every Move You Make, Your Strategy Deteriorates And Becomes Commoditized.

I Believe More Than Ever, Machines Will Put New Challenges, And That Means We'll Have To Be More Creative And More Human, Because That's The Way To Make The Difference.

We Know That For The Last 300 Or 400 Years, The Size Of Human Bodies Is Growing. Now What Happened Is That We Suddenly, In History, Have The Backward Process. We Have These Great Greek Athletes, We Have Ultra-powerful Roman Soldiers. You Look At The Size Of The Roman Soldier Who Has To Carry All This Ammunition. You're Talking About 300,000 Arnold Schwartzeneggers.

Back In The Days Of The Soviet Union, The Countries Of Eastern Europe, Being Under The Control Of The Ussr, Would Call Their States "people's Republics." The Sham That Is Currently Going On In The States Of The Former Soviet Union Is Due To The Fact That The Politicians In Power Are Eager To Polish Up Their Image Abroad.

Intelligent Machines Will Continue That Mechanization Process, Taking Over The More Menial Aspects Of Cognition And Elevating Our Mental Lives Towards Creativity, Curiosity, Beauty, And Joy. These Are What Truly Makes Us Human.

I Think Russian People Are Learning That Democracy Is Not An Alien Thing; It's Not A Western Invention.

A Game Of Chess Holds Many Secrets. Fortunately! That Is Why We Cannot Clearly State Whether Chess Is Science, Art, Or A Sport.

It Could Truly Be The Case That Vladimir Putin Has Miscalculated In The Long Term With His Adventure In Syria.

I Tried To Come Up With A Definition Of This New Paradigm In Six Articles Entitled "russia After Putin." I Would Consider Russia's Integration Into Europe The Most Important Element Of This Strategy.

Remember That The Machine Is There To Help You, Because At The End Of The Day, You're Not Playing Freestyle Chess, Advanced Chess, Human-plus-machine. If You Are Playing Against Other Humans, It's About Winning The Game. The Machine Will Not Be Assisting You, Unless You Are Cheating Of Course. And Since The Machine Is Not There, You Have To Make Sure That Everything You Learn From The Computer Will Not Badly Affect The Way You Play The Real Game.

If We Look At Everybody's Darling, China, There Is An Analogue Called Taiwan That Is Inhabited By The Chinese As Well. But The Standard Of Living And Of Innovation Of The Taiwanese Economy Cannot Be Compared With The Chinese Growth Rate.

It's Quite Difficult For Me To Imagine My Life Without Chess.

We Can't Attribute A Long History Of Democratic Traditions To Japan, Either, But Today Japan Boasts A Fully-fledged Democracy In Which Governments Change According To Democratic Procedures. It's No Coincidence That The Taiwanese, Japanese, And South Korean Economies Are Among The Most Innovative In Asia.

I'm Not In Favour Of A Regulation-free World. I Align Myself With Teddy Roosevelt, Who Broke Up The Trusts. Regulation Is Necessary, But It Should Be In Favour Of The Consumer, The Citizen, And Freedom.

I Like To Say That The Attacker Always Has The Advantage.

That Machines Will Surpass Us In Intelligence Is Inevitable. What It Means Is Unknowable. Will They Be Sentient? What Will They Care About In The Sense That Determines Our Human Motivations? All The Theorizing By The Experts And Non-experts Makes For Interesting Conversations And Dramatic Headlines, But It's More Likely We Will Be Surprised By How Our Technology Develops And How It Is Used, As We So Often Are.

Ratings Are King And The Money Keeps Flowing, And Partisanship Is So Strong Today That People Rely On A Few Sources Absolutely Instead Of Thinking Critically. So Even Being A Cheerleader For A Gameshow-host President With No Respect For The Rule Of Law Or America's Reputation In The World May Not Be A Career-ending Move.

As For The Eastern Part Of The Former Soviet Union, The Picture Is Rather Uniform. Authoritarian Structures Prevail To Differing Extents. But We Can Still Determine Certain Regularities, And The Role Of Russia Is Not To Be Underestimated. It Is Clear That We Would Have The Same Situation In Tajikistan And, Let's Say, Uzbekistan Without The Direct Influence Of Russia.

I Would Like To Travel To My Country Again, To A Country Without A Dictatorship, To A Post-putin Russia.

If You're Already In A Fight, You Want The First Blow To Be The Last And You Had Better Be The One To Throw It.

The Loss Of My Childhood Was The Price For Becoming The Youngest World Champion In History. When You Have To Fight Every Day From A Young Age, Your Soul Can Be Contaminated. I Lost My Childhood. I Never Really Had It. Today I Have To Be Careful Not To Become Cruel, Because I Became A Soldier Too Early.

Perfectly Correct Chess Exists Only In Theory.

Values-oriented Foreign Policy Of The Free World Would Be Much Better, Supported By The Self-awareness Of Being On The Right Side Of History.

There Is No Democracy In Russia. Dictators Do Not Go Away Through The Vote. Putin Relies On Riot Police, Thousands Of Them, With Heavy Equipment, Fighting Russian Youngsters From Opposition.

We Must Be Optimistic About The Future Because It's A Self-fulfilling Prophecy. If We Are Creative And Ambitious, Intelligent Machines Will Liberate Us And Be As Profound A Boon To Our Prosperity As Electricity. If We Are Fearful, And Fail To Press Ahead, We Could Be Overwhelmed By Automation And Inequality.

In Chess The Rules Are Fixed And The Outcome Is Unpredictable, Whereas In Putin's Russia The Rules Are Unpredictable And The Outcome Is Fixed.

We Have To Stop The Propaganda, The Shameful Propaganda Used By Kremlin To Rehabilitate These Old Types.

Of Course, If People Do Not Want To Do Any Work Then It Is Better To Start The Game From A Random Position.

Chess Is Far Too Complex To Be Definitively Solved With Any Technology We Can Conceive Of Today. However, Our Looked-down-upon Cousin, Checkers, Or Draughts, Suffered This Fate Quite Recently Thanks To The Work Of Jonathan Schaeffer At The University Of Alberta And His Unbeatable Program Chinook.

Inevitably The Machines Must Win, But There Is Still A Long Way To Go Before A Human On His Or Her Best Day Is Unable To Defeat The Best Computer.

Ultimately, What Separates A Winner From A Loser At The Grandmaster Level Is The Willingness To Do The Unthinkable.

I Am Between The Tories And The Lib Dems. I Am Fiscally Conservative. I'm For Strong Foreign Policy, But Socially Very Liberal. I Am Not Religious. That Makes Me Feel Uncomfortable With American Republicans. I Don't Feel At Home Anywhere, Really. Labour Under Tony Blair Was Not Something I Would Associate Myself With, But I Didn't Have A Big Problem With It. I Have To Make A Choice Between Fiscal And The Role Of The State And Social Freedom.

But We Must Not Forget The Effort Undertaken By The Ruling Elite In Russia To Manipulate Western Politicians, Businessmen As Well As Journalists. That's Why [vladimir] Putin's "fifth Column" Is That Powerful In The West.

Boris Vasilievich Was The Only Top-class Player Of His Generation Who Played Gambits Regularly And Without Fear ... Over A Period Of 30 Years He Did Not Lose A Single Game With The King's Gambit, And Among Those Defeated Were Numerous Strong Players Of All Generations, From Averbakh, Bronstein And Fischer, To Seirawan.

Many Republicans Who Traditionally Were For A Positive Role In The World, Anti-russian, Now They Want To Defend Their Party And Leader, And They Don't Care About Real Arguments. The Paradox Is The Democrats Were So Timid In Criticising Vladimir Putin. Barack Obama Appeased Him And Now They Are Criticising Putin's Interference In American Democracy. It Is A Strange Reversal Of The Roles.

You Cannot Say, 'go! Go! Rah! Rah! Good Move!' People Want Some Emotion. Chess Is An Art And Not A Spectator Sport.

[vladimir] Putin Needs Wars To Legitimize His Position.

I Would Not Draw Definitive Conclusions From That. If We Look At South And North Korea, It Is Pretty Hard To Believe That We're Dealing With The Same People. Half Of The People Are Forced To Live In A Concentration Camp; The Other Have Created One Of The Most Dynamic Economies In The World.

We Are Living In A World Where Major States And Large Geopolitical Projects Have To Prove Their Competitive Edge. It Is Clear, As Well, That With Regard To The Intensifying American-chinese Confrontation And The Inert Power Of A United Europe, Russia Has To Make Up Its Mind - Because It Is Losing Ground As An Independent Center Of Power.

In An Age When Schools Are Facing Significant Budgetary Restraints, There Is A Greater Need Than Ever To Make Chess Available To As Many Students As Possible. We've Assembled The Very Best In Chess Education To Develop A Complete Chess Curriculum - K Through 12. We've Designed A Program That Encourages Creativity, Instills Self-discipline And Offers Hope And A Feeling Of Accomplishment To Millions Of Children.

We Have To Always Look Ahead Enough Moves To Be Well Prepared, Even For Victory!

All Women Are Inferior To Men.

[vladimir] Putin Spoke Unabashedly About The Importance Of National Sovereignty In Syria, A Concept Apparently Near And Dear To His Heart, Unless It Comes To The Sovereignty Of Georgia, Ukraine Or Any Other Country In Which He Intervenes. Then He Offered His Cooperation, But Without Making Any Concrete Concessions At All. And He Didn't Have To, Either. He Knows What He Can Rely On. He Has Assets That Are More Valuable Than Words: He Has Tanks In Ukraine, Fighter Jets In Syria - And Barack Obama In The White House.

Throughout My Chess Career I Sought Out New Challenges, Looking For Things No One Had Done Before.

Nowadays Games Immediately Appear On The Internet And Thus The Life Of Novelties Is Measured In Hours. Modern Professionals Do Not Have The Right To Be Forgetful - It Is 'life Threatening'.

Vladimir Putin Is The Wealthiest Man On The Planet, For Sure. But This Is Different To The Wealth Of A Bill Gates Or A Warren Buffett, A Carlos Slim Or A Sergey Brin. They Stay Wealthy Whether It Is Barack Obama Or Donald Trump In Power. Putin's Wealth Depends On Him Staying In Power. It Is All About Controlling The Budget, The Hard Currency Reserves And Keeping Under His Thumb The Oligarchs Who Cannot Move Their Money Without His Permission. It Is Something Close To A Trillion Dollars That He Can Control And Move.

Russian Parliament Today Is A Bunch Of Puppets That Just Fall In With The Instructions From Kremlin.

Constructs Like Race Will Decline In Relevance In A Roboticized World. That How Well One Human Subset Or Community - A Race, A Nationality, A Religion - Is Doing Will Be Secondary To How Well Humanity In General Is Doing In Face Of The Robot Revolution.

I Wouldn't Overestimate The Importance Of My Popularity In The Country And Abroad But At The End Of The Day It's Not As Important Because I Believe That My Presence Here Could Make Some Difference And It Could Encourage People.

In The Event That We Don't Want To Lose The Far East And Siberia, We Need A United Europe.

We Are Living In A New Ice Age, And We Need To Apply The Recipes Of The Cold War To The Kremlin. That Means Isolation Instead Of Offers Of Negotiation. And Ukraine Should Have Been Supplied With Weapons Long Ago.

There Are Fixed Rules In Chess, And No One Knows How The Game Will End.

It Is Better To Have A Bad Plan Than No Plan.

Dictatorships Can Exist With Free Markets - Not That China Is Really A Free Market - Especially In Poor Countries Where The Regime Insists That It's A Choice Between Food And Liberty, A False Choice. But Increasing Affluence Will Inevitably Result In Political Pressure.

...comparing The Capacity Of Computers To The Capacity Of The Human Brain, I've Often Wondered, Where Does Our Success Come From? The Answer Is Synthesis, The Ability To Combine Creativity And Calculation, Art And Science, Into Whole That Is Much Greater Than The Sum Of Its Parts.

For Inspiration I Look To Those Great Players Who Consistently Found Original Ways To Shock Their Opponents. None Did This Better Than The Eighth World Champion, Mikhail Tal. The "magician Of Riga" Rose To Become Champion In 1960 At Age Twenty-three And Became Famous For His Aggressive, Volatile Play.

I Don't Think That Nature Envisaged An Insurmountable Mechanism That Would Hinder Any Country From Taking The Path Of Democratic Development.

[vladimir] Putin Is More Of A Poker Player. In Poker, Unlike Chess, You Can Effectively Compensate For A Very Weak Hand By Bluffing. There Are Fixed Rules In Chess, And No One Knows How The Game Will End. Things Are Currently The Other Way Around In Putin's Realm. But It Won't Stay That Way Forever.

We Should Simply Accept The Fact That The Way Machines Make Decisions Is Different, And Rather Look At The Result. If Machines Are Providing Results That We Are Looking For, You Would Mind How Much Human Understanding Was Used In The Process. And More Likely We Should Look For The Way Of Combining Human Skills And Machine Skills. And That, I Believe, Is The Future Role Of Humanity, Is Just To Make Sure It Will Be Using This Immense Power Of Brute Force Of Calculation For Our Benefit.

Boris Nemtsov And I Began To Argue After Putin's Return To The Presidency In 2012. In My Opinion, There Was No Longer A Realistic Chance To Achieve Regime Change Through Peaceful Political Means, Or Real Elections. Boris, On The Other Hand, Never Lost This Hope. He Felt That My Assessment Was Premature And Said: "you Have To Live A Long Time To See Changes In Russia." He Was Deprived Of That Opportunity.

I Would Say, You Have A Unique Chance Of Learning More About The Game Of Chess With Your Computer Than Bobby Fischer, Or Even Myself, Could Manage Throughout Our Entire Lives. What Is Very Important Is That You Will Use This Power Productively And You Will Not Be Hijacked By The Computer Screen. Always Keep Your Personality Intact.

I'm Not Trying To Give Any Definite Answer. What I'm Trying To Prove Is That We Have Enough Gaps, Enough Discrepancies, Enough Simple Falsifications To Conclude That Probably This History Was An Invention Of A Later Time.

I Don't Have Enough Information, And Enough Courage, To Come Up With A Definite Version Of Events. And I Think It Is Too Dangerous For Me To Do So.

The Russian Dept Of Tourism Has Declared Ukraine Its Most Dangerous Destination. Many Russian Tourists Have Disappeared There.

I Would Say That When You Go To The Very, Very Top, It's An Ability To Come Up With New Ideas, With Something New, To Make The Difference. Every World Champion, Every Player Who Was Traversing This Universe, Managed To Bring Something New To The Game. This Ability To Always Find Some Unconventional Ways. That Makes The Final Difference.

At The Northern Border Of Azerbaijan, Daghestan By No Means Contributes To The Democratization Of The Caucasus.

I Think Russians Today Have A Distorted Picture Of Capitalism, Liberal Democracy And Market Economy.

A Brilliant Strategy Is, Certainly, A Matter Of Intelligence, But Intelligence Without Audaciousness Is Not Enough.

The Kremlin Is Constantly Changing The Rules Of The Game To Suit Its Purposes. We Are Not Playing Chess, We're Playing Roulette.

Weaknesses Of Character Are Normally Shown In A Game Of Chess.

Machines Taking Over Jobs - It's The History Of Civilization. Replacing Farm Animals, Old Forms Of Manual Labor, Now Taking Over Small, Menial Aspects Of Cognition. But There's Still Plenty Of Room For Creativity, For Curiosity - Many Things That Are Related To Passion, Like Art. But Also, Things About Human Communication And Challenges, Massive Challenges That We Left Behind Because We Didn't Want To Take So Much Risk, Such As Space Exploration, Deep Ocean Exploration.

Chess Is A Unique Cognitive Nexus, A Place Where Art And Science Come Together In The Human Mind And Are Then Refined And Improved By Experience.

I'm Looking Forward To The Day When My Country Is Saved - And The Current Winner Becomes A Loser.

Looking Forward

From Ukraine To Syria, He [vladimir Putin] Is Behaving Like The World's New General And Celebrating Victories, While The American President Sits On The Sidelines And Europe Sleeps. The West's Behavior Toward Putin Is Political And Moral Capitulation.

It Was An Impressive Achievement, Of Course, And A Human Achievement By The Members Of The Ibm Team, But Deep Blue Was Only Intelligent The Way Your Programmable Alarm Clock Is Intelligent. Not That Losing To A $10 Million Alarm Clock Made Me Feel Any Better.

The Regime Is In Trouble Economically And Can No Longer Offer Anything To Its Citizens. That's Why [vladimir] Putin Has To Pursue An Aggressive Foreign Policy, So He Can Serve His People The Fairy Tale Of Russian Pride And Regaining Its Strength As A Major Power.

It's Not Enough To Be Talented. It's Not Enough To Work Hard And To Study Late Into The Night. You Must Also Become Intimately Aware Of The Methods You Use To Reach Your Decisions.

Attackers May Sometimes Regret Bad Moves, But It Is Much Worse To Forever Regret An Opportunity You Allowed To Pass You By.

You're Always Going To Have Dangerous, Disaffected People In Any Society, And Some Will Be Violent. Increasing Prosperity And Reducing Inequality Won't Solve That Completely. But Having Big, Positive Dreams And A Society That Makes It Possible To Achieve Those Dreams Is What We Must Strive For.

I Am Lucky, .. That The Popular Sport In The Soviet Union Was Chess And Not Baseball.

I've Seen Up Close The Benefits And Drawbacks Of Kids Working With Super-strong Chess Programs In Their Training, And They Definitely Think Differently Than Past Generations Thanks To This Alien Influence. While We Are Making Our Machines More Intelligent, They Are Also Changing How We Think.

Question The Status Quo At All Times, Especially When Things Are Going Well.

[vladimir] Putin Intended To Provide For A Broad Safety Corridor [for The Olympic Games]. That's Why Abkhazia Was A More Important And Desired Goal Of Russian Aggression Against Georgia Than South Ossetia, Which Merely Served As A Pretext. Concerns Mainly Centered On The Crimea.

I Don't Make Any Secret Of The Fact That I'm Closer To The Republicans Than To The Democrats. But Even Under A President Hillary Clinton, Us Foreign Policy Toward Moscow Would Probably Be More Critical And Confrontational. I Hope It Isn't Too Late For That.

A Grandmaster Needs To Retain Thousands Of Games In His Head, For Games Are To Him What The Words Of Their Mother Tongue Are To Ordinary People, Or Notes Or Scores To Musicians.

We See Threats To Liberal Democracy Coming From Lots Of Directions. We Have To Create Something New, A Common Response, Because In So Many Places - The Uk, France, Germany - Ultranationalists And The Far Left Threaten The Free Market And Liberal Democracy.

When You Put Party Over Principles, You Can't Avoid Tripping Over Your Own Hypocrisy And Contradictions Eventually. The Gop Establishment Refused To Stand Up To Trump During The Primary Because They Wanted His Voters In Order To Beat Hillary Clinton. Then He Won The Primary, And Then The General, And The Gop Both Times Decided It Was Better To Cling To Their Grasp At Power, To Cling To Trump And All He Stands For, A Decision That Should Destroy The Party Or Drag It Down For A Generation.

This Obligation To Move Can Be A Burden To A Player Without Strategic Vision.

For Us To Make Sure That We Have Full Lives, Meaningful Lives, We Will Have To Elevate Our Unique Human Qualities. And I Think We Know Now, We Can See Clearly What Makes Us Different From Machines. And That's Why The Future Is Enhanced Humanity.

By The Time A Player Becomes A Grandmaster, Almost All Of His Training Time Is Dedicated To Work On This First Phase. The Opening Is The Only Phase That Holds Out The Potential For True Creativity And Doing Something Entirely New.

Young People, Especially Young Men Due To Culture And Perhaps Testosterone, Dream About Changing The World, Making An Impact, Doing Big Things. Now Our Young People Are Told Life Was Better In The Past, That We Should Be Less Ambitious And Hold On To What We Have. The Grand Narratives Of Exploration And Change That Drove The World Forward For A Century Have Been Tamed.

The Slightest Sign Of Stability Is Used By Local Authoritarian Leaders To Bargain For The Sympathies Of Western Countries That Are, For The Sake Of A Balanced Relationship, Bound To Turn A Blind Eye To Obvious, Blatant Violations Of Human Rights And The Deconstruction Of Democratic Institutions In These Countries.

Violation Of Human Rights

Many People Think They Are Too Refined, Or Too Rational, To Entertain A Real Sense Of Wonder In Themselves Or In Others. This Is Preposterous To Me, Since The Natural World Is Full Of Endless Wonders, Both On Earth And Especially In Space, No Matter How You Think It Was Created.

Thanks To The Polgars The Adjective 'men's' Before Events And The 'affirmative Action' Women's Titles Such As Woman Grandmaster Have Become Anachronisms.

The Only Game [vladimir] Putin Can Play Is To Establish A Lifelong Dictatorship In The Country, At First De Facto And Finally Also De Jure. In This Case, [dmitri] Medvedev Is An Interim Figure Bound To Assist Putin In His Plan To Guarantee A Smooth Transition To A New Term In Office.

If You Make A Decision To Fight For Future Of Your Own Country You Have To Consider All The Consequences.

A Machine Helps Us To Annihilate Our Weaknesses. We Don't Have A Steady Hand. We Can Lose All Vigilance. We Can Be Distracted By Something That Is Not That Relevant. But We Have Intuition. We Can Feel Certain Things. And With A Machine You Can Check Whether It's Right Or Wrong. That's Why By Bringing The Two Together, You Create A Very, Very Powerful Combination.

Millions Like Me In Russia Want A Free Press, The Rule Of Law, Social Justice, And Free And Fair Elections. My New Job Is To Fight For Those People And To Fight For These Fundamental Rights.

For Me, Chess Is A Language, And If It's Not My Native Tongue, It Is One I Learned Via The Immersion Method At A Young Age.

Putin Recognized That If He Could Get Enough Money, Everything Would Be Under Control.

I Have Great Energy And I Have Great Tasks Ahead Of Me.

Tactics Involve Calculations That Can Tax The Human Brain, But When You Boil Them Down, They Are Actually The Simplest Part Of Chess And Are Almost Trivial Compared To Strategy.

The Far East And Eastern Siberia Are Already Developing According To A Chinese Scenario, The Full Scope Of Which Will Be Revealed In The Near Future. In The Next 10 To 15 Years, A Lot Of Russian Territories Will Become At Least De Facto Chinese. This Will Change The Situation In Russia Fundamentally.

Ukraine Had Quite Serious Impact On The Many Russians. They Could See That Ordinary People In Ukraine Which Is A Bordering State, Very Close To Russia, The People Of This State Are, They Didn't Want To Tolerate Anymore The Power Abuse By Ukrainian Officials.

With This Mistake I Deprived Myself Of The Possibility To Make A Contribution To The Treasury Of Chess Art.

Everyone Is Concerned About His Niche, His Name, And Wants To Adapt The Concept To So-called National Characteristics. But At The End Of The Day, It's All The Same.

The End Of The Day

My Love Of Dynamic Complications Often Led Me To Avoid Simplicity When Perhaps It Was The Wisest Choice.

Without A Goal [maneuvering Is] Aimless. You Might Be A Master Tactician, But You'll Have No Sense Of Strategy.

I Now Have Croatian Citizenship, But I Only Accepted It Because Croatia Allowed Me To Keep My Russian Passport.

The Best Chess Masters Of Every Epoch Have Been Closely Linked With The Values Of The Society In Which They Lived And Worked. All The Changes Of A Cultural, Political, And Psychological Background Are Reflected In The Style And Ideas Of Their Play.

When I Was Preparing For One Term's Work In The Botvinnik School I Had To Spend A Lot Of Time On King And Pawn Endings. So When I Came To A Tricky Position In My Own Games I Knew The Winning Method.

The Only Way To Fail For Me Is Just Not To Try.

I May Play Some Exhibition Games So I Don't Want To Quit The Game Of Chess Completely. I Just Decided And It's A Firm Decision Not To Play Competitive Chess Anymore.

If Critics And Competitors Can't Match Your Results, They Will Often Denigrate The Way You Achieve Them. Fast, Intuitive Types Are Called Lazy. Dedicated Burners Of The Midnight Oil Are Called Obsessed. And While It's Obviously Not A Bad Idea To Hear And Consider The Opinions Of Others, You Should Be Suspicious When These Criticisms Emerge Right On The Heels Of Success.

Once I Spoke About This Subject Among A Group Of English Intellectuals. One Of Them Was A Professor On Roman Law At One Of The Leading British Universities. I Asked Him,what Was The Official Language Of The Byzantine Empire? He Said, Maybe Sometime In The Sixth Or The Seventh Century.the Justinian Codex, The Rule Of Law In The Byzantine Empire Which Was Produced By Emperor Justinian, It Was Written In Latin.and He Looked At Me ,he Knew That I Knew Already That The Only Original Copy Was Found In The Beginning Of The Sixteenth Century.

Right, Left, Greens, Baathists, Whatever: It Comes Down To Grabbing And Holding Power And Using Ideology - Or Religion, Race - As A Justification.

Quite Frankly, I Have To Admit That With Regard To The Enormous Financial Assets And Funds Of Russian Leaders In Western Banks And On Stock Markets, The Chances For The West To Exert Influence On Russia Are Quite Low. I Doubt That Western Leaders Are Willing To Exert Pressure. I Would Not Exclude An Intervention In Case Of A Crisis.

There Are Many Facts Showing That Putin's People Enriched Themselves By Using Power Mechanisms So That's Why For Them Losing Power Means Losing Their Fortunes.

His Teaching Became A Turning Point In Chess History: It Was From Steinitz That The Era Of Modern Chess Began. The Contribution Of The First World Champion To Its Development Is Comparable With The Great Scientific Discoveries Of The 19th Century.

The Soviet Union Tried To Sell A Set Of Ideas, Very Left Wing, And Focus On So-called Peace. Vladimir Putin Doesn't Care Who Helps Him To Push His Agenda. He Is Equally Comfortable With The Politics Of Nigel Farage And Corbyn In Britain, Le Pen And Jean-luc Mélenchon In France. Whether Far Left Or Nationalist, He Doesn't Care, As Long As They Support Chaos And Destruction And The Undermining Of Existing Institutions.

I Think We Have Very Steady Records Of President Putin, Who Inherited The Country With Democratic Values.

The Situation In Georgia Is Determined By The Breakaway Regions Abkhazia And South Ossetia. While We Must Acknowledge The Reforms Initiated By Mikheil Saakashvili That Drastically Lowered The Level Of Corruption And Authoritarian Structures In The Georgian State, Under The Above-mentioned Circumstances, The Ruling Elite Must Keep A Firm Grip On The Country.

A Very Strong Player Can Manage And Can Just Know How To Manage A Thousand Positions. I Get It; It's A Very Arbitrary Number. So Then You Have The World Champion Who Could Do More. But, Again, Any Increase In Numbers Creates, Sort Of, A New Level Of Playing. And Then You Go To The Very Top, And The Difference Is So Minimal, But It Does Exist. So Even A Few Players Who Never Became World Champion, Like Vassily Ivanchuk, For Instance, I Think They Belong To The Same Category.

There Is No Doubt That [vladimir] Putin Is Responsible For This Crime, Whether Or Not He Gave The Order To Commit The Murder [of Boris Nemtsov] Himself. Putin Created The Conditions And Atmosphere That Have Made This Kind Of Thing Possible.

[vladimir] Putin's Russia Is Only Indirectly Concerned With The Conflict Between Armenia And Azerbaijan As A Means Of Maintaining Its Sphere Of Influence. I Doubt That Russia Will Meddle. Moreover, I'm Quite Sure That Ilham Aliyev Won't Decide To Carry Out Any Serious Action - It's Not In His Interest. He's Learned His Lesson Very Well - Threaten To Take Action But Never Act On Such Words.

I Try To Play, Always, Beautiful Games...always I Wanted To Create Masterpieces.

I Dropped The King's Indian In 1997 After One Too Many Bad Experiences Against Kramnik.

Bad Experiences

I've Met Enough Kgb Colonels In My Life.

Dictators Are Not Strategists In The Way I Normally Use That Term. All The Dictator Cares About Is Survival. That Means Constantly Worrying About The Tactical Response, "what Do I Do Today, Tonight, Tomorrow Morning, To Stay Alive?" Vladimir Putin Doesn't Care What Happens A Year Or Five Years From Now. He Just Cares About Staying In The Game. That Is All He Needs To Survive.

To Play Chess On A Truly High Level Requires A Constant Stream Of Exact, Informed Decisions, Made In Real Time And Under Pressure From Your Opponent. What's More, It Requires A Synthesis Of Some Very Different Virtues, All Of Which Are Necessary To Good Decisions: Calculatioñ, Creativity And A Desire For Results. If You Ask A Grandmaster, An Artist And A Computer Scientist What Makes A Good Chess Player, You'll Get A Glimpse Of These Different Strengths In Action.

In General There Is Something Puzzling About The Fact That The Most Renowned Figures In Chess - Morphy, Pillsbury, Capablanca And Fischer - Were Born In America.

The International Repercussions Were Shattering To Some Extent - There Is No Intention To Repeat Operations Of Such Kind In The Future.[viktor] Yanukovych's Electoral Victory Clearly Demonstrated That There Are No Pro-russian Politicians In The Ukraine, Just Ukrainian Politicians.

I Reckon That There Won't Be An Intervention In The Near Future, Because Georgia's Military Adventure Revealed The Weakness Of The Russian Army.

More And More People In My Country Recognise The Dangers Of Having Their Governors Appointed By Putin And Having No Influence In Parliament Because Parliament Today Is Also Following Instructions From Kremlin And No Longer Represents Its People.

Following Instructions

This Traditionally Happens In Russia And In Every Other Undemocratic Country As Well - The Quest For A Scapegoat Won't Be Long, Either. The Easiest Way To Find A Scapegoat Is To Ascribe That Role To Former Governments.

There Can Be No Finer Example Of The Inspiring Powers Of Competition To Shatter The Status Quo Than Hungary's Judit Polgar.

All That Now Seems To Stand Between Nigel And The Prospect Of The World Crown Is The Unfortunate Fact That Fate Brought Him Into This World Only Two Years After Kasparov.

Where Do Poor Young People Turn? Isis Has A Mission For You To Change The World! It's A Horrific Vision, But It's A Vision. Perhaps For White Supremacists, You Can Add The Additional Storyline That They Believe That They Are Having Something Taken From Them By Outsiders, By Immigrants. Not Only Are They Losing Out And Bored, But They Think They Are Victims And That They Know Who Is Responsible.

It's Interesting That The Greatest Minds Of Computer Science, The Founding Fathers, Like Alan Turing And Claude Shannon And Norbert Wiener, They All Looked At Chess As The Ultimate Test. So They Thought, "oh, If A Machine Can Play Chess, And Beat Strong Players, Set Aside A World Champion, That Would Be The Sign Of A Dawn Of The Ai Era." With All Due Respect, They Were Wrong.

Do As Little As Necessary To Appear To Be Doing Something Without Actually Committing To A Cause Or Course Of Action.

Russia's Inclination Toward Authoritarianism Undoubtedly Strengthened The Leaders In Azerbaijan, Armenia, And Kazakhstan, As They Are Afraid Of Normal Democratic Procedures.

Furthermore, The Situation In The North Caucasus Is Rather Unstable. Mutual Relations And The Cooperation Between [vladimir] Putin And [ramzan] Kadyrov, The High Price That Has Been Paid To Buy The Loyalty Of The Local Elite Through An Enormous Tribute Of Multibillion[-ruble] Investments, All This Cannot Be An Arrangement For Good.

I Don't Really Like Discussions About A Supposed Russian National Character.

Sometimes The Hardest Thing To Do In A Pressure Situation Is To Allow The Tension To Persist. The Temptation Is To Make A Decision, Any Decision, Even If It Is An Inferior Choice.

If You Wish To Succeed, You Must Brave The Risk Of Failure.

To My Surprise I Found That When Other Top Players In The Precomputer Age (before 1995, Roughly) Wrote About Games In Magazines And Newspaper Columns, They Often Made More Mistakes In Their Annotations Than The Players Had Made At The Board.

[romans] Never Made Any Improvements On The Cavalry. And Amazingly, When You Read The Sources, They Couldn't Make It Because Stirrups Were Not Known In Europe. For Hundreds Of Years, The Romans Couldn't Make A Cavalry Which Proved To Be Extremely Effective.

Alexei Navalny, The Opposition Politician Who Has Led Anti-corruption Protests, Had A Blog About A Credit Line To A Company Owned By Vladimir Putin's Son-in-law, $1.75 Billion From Russian State Funds; This Is One Transaction. Putin Controls More Money Directly And Indirectly Than Any Individual In Human History.

Vladimir Putin Likes Donald Trump Because He Supports This View Of The World, That The Big Guys Can Carve It Up, Sit And Talk About The World, Carve Up The Countries, Shape Borders. For Putin, Treaties, Alliances, Nato, The Eu Are Stumbling Blocks.

Chess Is One Of The Few Arts Where Composition Takes Place Simultaneously With Performance

I Say We Should Praise Donald Trump For Existing And For Winning, Because It Has Woken People Up. For Many Years, I Have Been Trying To Say To Europeans, And Especially To Americans, That Vladimir Putin Is A Problem For The World. And They Have Swatted Me Away. "it's Your Problem, We Have Our Democracy." Suddenly, Because Of Trump, They Are Learning About Separation Of Powers, Independence Of The Judiciary And That Ronald Reagan Was Right When He Said, «freedom Is Never More Than One Generation Away From Extinction».

The Highest Art Of The Chess Player Lies In Not Allowing Your Opponent To Show You What He Can Do.

Though I Would Have Liked My Chances In A Rematch In 1998 If I Were Better Prepared, It Was Clear Then That Computer Superiority Over Humans In Chess Had Always Been Just A Matter Of Time.

Chess Continues To Advance Over Time, So The Players Of The Future Will Inevitably Surpass Me In The Quality Of Their Play, Assuming The Rules And Regulations Allow Them To Play Serious Chess. But It Will Likely Be A Long Time Before Anyone Spends 20 Consecutive Years As Number, One As I Did.

I Want To Serve Chess Through Games, Books That Are Works Of Art. I Would Like To Bring The Game Closer To Many People All Over The World.

If We Keep An Optimistic View About The Future, We Definitely Have To Look For Our Place. Not To Be Redundant. And That Means We Have To Emphasize What Makes Us Unique.

I'm Still Number One And I Just Recently Won A Major Tournament Ahead Of My Toughest Rivals So I Think I Had A Few Years Ahead Of Me If I Decided To Stay.

Putin Can't Afford To Leave The Office Because He Will Be In Real Danger Of Being Prosecuted For Things He And His People Did During Their Stay In Power.

Enormous Self-belief, Intuition, The Ability To Take A Risk At A Critical Moment And Go In For A Very Dangerous Play With Counter-chances For The Opponent - It Is Precisely These Qualities That Distinguish Great Players.

It Is Quite Difficult To Establish A Clear-cut Cause-and-effect Relationship, As The Causes Are Manifold And Closely Connected. It Is Simply Not Correct To Link The Level Of Democracy To Prosperity. It Is Absolutely Clear That The Economic Wealth Of Saudi Arabia Exceeds The Performance Of The Czech Republic. But Apparently Democracy Is Quite Stable In The Czech Republic, Which Cannot Be Said About Saudi Arabia. As We Delve Into The Past, We Must Not Forget About The Existing Model Of Society.

I Have Some Security That Could Protect Me Against Provocations But Of Course There Are More Terrible Actions That Could Not Be Stopped By Any Security.

What I Am Trying To Figure Out In My Preface Is How Romans Could Operate Without The Simple Items - Maps - That Are Necessary For Running Such A Huge Empire.

Everyone, At Any Age, Has Talents That Aren't Fully Developed-even Those Who Reach The Top Of Their Profession.

In My Opinion, This Vicious Circle Will Be Broken By History Itself. Because Sticking To The Current Form Of Governance, Which Is To Say Guaranteeing The Survival Of [vladimir] Putin's Regime, Will Necessarily Lead To The Demise Of Russia Within Its Present Borders.

Setbacks And Losses Are Both Inevitable And Essential If You're Going To Improve And Become A Good, Even Great, Competitor. The Art Is In Avoiding Catastrophic Losses In The Key Battles.

The Legend Of The Best Player Of Chess Has Been Destroyed.

Russia Is A Mafia State Today, And Putin Is Its Top Godfather.

With Some Reservation, It Can Be Said That Certain Democratic Elements Are Present In Georgia As Well; But It Is Very Clear That The Government Has To Pronounce Its Explicit Wish To Resign Before Something Is Going To Happen. On The Western Front, Only Belarus Is An Exception.

Many Politicians In The West Cling To The Notion Of A Partnership With Russia. They Want To Include [vladimir] Putin, Make Compromises And Constantly Negotiate New Deals With Him. But History Has Taught Us That The Longer We Pursue Appeasement And Do Nothing, The Higher The Price Will Be Later On. Dictators Don't Ask "why?" Before They Seize Even More Power. They Ask: "why Not?"

Nervous Energy Is The Ammunition We Take Into Any Mental Battle. If You Don't Have Enough Of It, Your Concentration Will Fade. If You Have A Surplus, The Results Will Explode.

When You Say Politics, You Conjure A Whole Bunch Of Associations: Elections, Campaigning, Debates, Fundraising. None Of This Exists In Russia! We Are Still Fighting Not For Election Victories But For Having Elections At All.

We Think About Time As Something Not To Waste, Not As Something To Invest.

A Grandmaster Must Memorize Thousands Of Chess Duels In His Head, As These Are For Him What Words Of The Mother Tongue Are To The Ordinary People And What Notes Are To A Musician.

Our Skin, Our Borders, All Seem Petty Compared To Alien Races And The Scale Of Galaxies. Nobody In The Star Wars Universe Cares About White Or Black Humans, It Seems, And What Meaning Could Physical Appearance Possibly Have When There Are Sentient Beings That Look Like Lobsters Or Like Jabba The Hutt? Unfortunately, In The Real World, Such Hopeful Sentiments Are Regularly Refuted By Our Stubborn Insistence On Always Finding Someone To Discriminate Against.

Caissa, The Goddess Of Chess, Had Punished Me For My Conservative Play, For Betraying My Nature.

In My Opinion, Using Different Kinds Of Epithets And Adjectives In Connection With The Word Democracy Is A Sign Of Mere Hypocrisy, To Put It Mildly. Either There's Democracy, Or There Isn't.

Chess Is A Unique Battlefield For Human Minds And Computers - Human Intuition, Our Creativity, Fantasy, Our Logic, Versus The Brute Force Of Calculation And A Very Small Portion Of Accumulated Knowledge Infused By Other Human Beings. So In Chess We Can Compare These Two Incompatible Things And Probably Make Projections Into Our Future. Is There Danger That The Human Mind Will Be Overshadowed By The Power Of Computers, Or We Can Still Survive?

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