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One Of My Optimistic Prophecies Is Based On The Assumption That Machines Could Have The Best Algorithms In The Universe, But It Will Never Have Purpose. And The Problem For Us To Explain Purpose To A Machine Is Because We Don't Know What Our Purpose Is. We Have The Purpose, But We Still ... When We Look At This Global Picture, A Universal Picture, To Understand What Is Our Purpose Being Here On This Planet? We Don't Know.

-Garry Kasparov

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One Of My Optimistic

Garry Kasparov

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One Of My Optimistic Prophecies Is Based On The Assumption That Machines Could Have The Best Algorithms In The Universe, But It Will Never Have Purpose. And The Problem For Us To Explain Purpose To A Machine Is Because We Don't Know What Our Purpose Is. We Have The Purpose, But We Still ... When We Look At This Global Picture, A Universal Picture, To Understand What Is Our Purpose Being Here On This Planet? We Don't Know.

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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 Wouldn't Place Much Stock In Numbers. I Don't Believe That They Reflect Putin's True Popularity. Just Think About How The Pollsters Proceed. They Call People And They Ask Them Questions On The Street. In Today's Russia, It Takes A Lot Of Courage To Tell A Stranger Something Critical About The Head Of The Kremlin. And Yet More Than 20 Percent Do So Nonetheless.

I Have Some Strategical Vision, I Could Calculate Some Few Moves Ahead And I Have An Intellect That Is Badly Missed In The Country Which Is Run By Generals And Colonels.

The Situation In The [north Caucasus ] Region Can Easily Get Out Of Control If The Capital Inflow Is Interrupted. It Is Apparent, Even When Leaving Democratic Institutions And Values Aside For A Moment, That [vladimir] Putin's Regime Has Led The Country Down A Blind Alley. Our Task Is To Usher In A Shift Of Paradigms, A New Foundation.

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

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

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

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.

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.

Tarrasch's 'dogmas' Are Not Eternal Truisms, But Merely Instructional Material Presented In An Accessible And Witty Form, Those Necessary Rudiments From Which One Can Begin To Grasp The Secrets Of Chess.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

So Many Dictators Trying To Blackmail The Free World Because They Have No Way To Compete On Ideas, Innovation Or Creativity. The Cold War Was Two Competing Visions Of The Future. I Was Always Anti-communist But It Was An Idea At Least, An Alternative Idea. We Do Not Have A Competing Vision For The Future Because The Ideals Of These Dictators Are In The Past. They Are Time Travellers. They Need Confrontation And Destruction To Survive. The Problem Is, Many People In The Free World Are Sympathetic To Vladimir Putin.

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.

[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.

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'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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

We Have Again A Strange Gap. We Have The Big Scientific Discoveries Around The Second, Third Century Bc. Then We Have An Invention Of The So-called Arab System, The Positional System Of Counting With Zero Dated To The Eighth Or Ninth Century.

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.

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.

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

There Are Exceptions Of Course, Like For Instance The Baltic States, Which Are Members Of The European Union, Together With Ukraine And Moldova, As Well. In Those Countries, The Governments Have Been Reformed As A Result Of Elections.

Vladimir Putin Mainly Has Friends In Europe Among The Extreme Right, Such As Marine Le Pen's Front National In France.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

My Opponent Is Short And The Match Will Be Short.

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.

Furthermore, A Large Portion Of The Assets Of Leading Russian Figures Is Mixed, Meaning That It Is Not Quite Clear How To Counter This Development.

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.

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.

The Real Political Life In Russia Unfortunately Is Not In The Parliament But On The Streets And In The Media.

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

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

Chess Strength In General And Chess Strength In A Specific Match Are By No Means One And The Same Thing.

Learning From Our Mistakes Is Critical For Improving, But Even I Don't Have Patience For Ranking My Regrets. Regret Is A Negative Emotion That Inhibits The Optimism Required To Take On New Challenges. You Risk Living In An Alternative Universe, Where If Only You Had Done This Or That Differently, Things Would Be Better. That's A Poor Substitute For Making Your Actual Life Better, Or Improving The Lives Of Others. Regret Briefly, Analyze And Understand, And Then Move On, Improving The Only Life You Have.

History Tells You If Dictators Are Not Stopped In Time, They Cause More Damage.

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.

[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.

In Chess, Bigamy Is Acceptable But Monarchy Is Absolute.

I Learned That Fighting On The Chess Board Could Also Have An Impact On The Political Climate In The Country.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

[vladimir] Putin Needs Wars To Legitimize His Position.

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

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.

The Most Hopeful Approach To Peace In Ukraine Is The Minsk Agreement, Which Includes Moscow.

When Your House Is On Fire, You Cant Be Bothered With The Neighbors. Or, As We Say In Chess, If Your King Is Under Attack You Don't Worry About Losing A Pawn On The Queen's Side

I Certainly Want To Be Involved In Politics And Help Shape The Transition. I Am In Contact With Regime Critics Who Had To Leave For The West. One Of Them Is Mikhail Khodorkovsky, The Former Businessman, Who Had To Endure 10 Years In A Prison Camp.

We Know That The Governments In Most Of The Successor States Formed After The Collapse Of The Soviet Union Are Replaced Through A Process Of Regular Elections.

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

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.

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

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

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

Bad Experiences

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

Women, By Their Nature, Are Not Exceptional Chess Players: They Are Not Great Fighters.

It Was Not About Losing My Mental Power; It's About Not Feeling Good About My Contribution To The Game.

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.

Dictatorships Sometimes Fall Unexpectedly And Quickly. And [vladimir] Putin Knows That For Him, The Loss Of Power Doesn't Mean A Comfortable Retirement, But Something Completely Different.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

There Is No One That Can Share Your Responsibility. It It Is Your Responsibility You Must Carry It On And You Must Be Responsible For Your Actions. At The End Of The Day We All Are Being Challenged, Sooner Or Later, By Our Destiny. And It's Up To Us To Make All The Difference In This Life. If Not You, Who Else?

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.

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.

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.

Winning Is Not A Secret That Belongs To A Very Few, Winning Is Something That We Can Learn By Studying Ourselves, Studying The Environment And Making Ourselves Ready For Any Challenge That Is In Front Of Us.

One Lesson Is To Not To Play Desperately If Your Position Is Worse But Still Reasonable. Lashing Out Wildly In An Inferior Position Usually Only Hastens Defeat. Meanwhile, Solid, Stubborn Defense Can Demoralize The Attacker, Make Him Lose Confidence. When That Happens, The Tables Can Turn. Keep Fighting, Stay Steady, Keep Morale High - And Public Protests Are Good For All Of These Things.

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.

Few Things Are As Psychologically Brutal As Chess.

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.

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.

Chess Is An Art And Not A Spectator Sport.

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

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.

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.

I Have No Idea How Long Putin Will Last. The Good News Is, Putin Doesn't Know Either. It Will Be Sudden And It Won't Be Peaceful. He Has Burned His Bridges.

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.

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.

One Of My Optimistic Prophecies Is Based On The Assumption That Machines Could Have The Best Algorithms In The Universe, But It Will Never Have Purpose. And The Problem For Us To Explain Purpose To A Machine Is Because We Don't Know What Our Purpose Is. We Have The Purpose, But We Still ... When We Look At This Global Picture, A Universal Picture, To Understand What Is Our Purpose Being Here On This Planet? We Don't Know.

The Sanctions And Travel Restrictions Would Have To Be Far More Comprehensive To Be Truly Painful For [vladimir] Putin And His Inner Circle. And The New Middle Class Should Also Feel The Effects Of What He Is Doing. For Instance, We Should Ask Those Who Wish To Enter The Eu Whether They Have Visited Illegally Occupied Crimea In The Last Few Months And, If The Answer Is "yes," Deny Them A Visa.

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.

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.

...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.

We Shouldn't Forget That In The Case Of Georgia, A Problem Was Done Away With That Bothered [vladimir] Putin Personally - That Is, The Security During The Winter Olympics In Sochi In 2014. Security Not In The Sense Of A Guaranteed Absence Of A Terror Attack, But In Pursuing The Aim Of Moving Hot Spots Of Possible Conflict Farther From The Site Of The Olympic Games, Which Are To Be Held A Stone's Throw From Abkhazia - That Is, In De Jure Georgia.

Kortchnoi's Heritage Is Many-faceted - Over The Decades He Has Several Times Corrected And Changed His Style. But The Main Thing Has Invariably Remained His Search For Chess Truth.

Vladimir Putin Has This Animalistic Instinct Of All Dictators: He Smells Weakness. To Quote Winston Churchill's Definition Of Appeasement: "an Appeaser Is One Who Feeds A Crocodile, Hoping It Will Eat Him Last."

Chess Is Life In Miniature. Chess Is Struggle, Chess Is Battles

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

A Championship Contender In The Early Twentieth Century Needed Charisma And A Knack For Cultivating Sponsorship, And Rubinstein Was The Epitome Of The Shy And Unsocial Chess Player. Now Matter How Great His Chess Skills, He Lacked The People Skills To Be A Self-promoter And Fund-raiser.

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 Each Success The Ability To Change Is Reduced. My Longtime Friend And Coach Grandmaster Yuri Dokhoian, Aptly Compared It To Being Dipped In Bronze. Each Victory Added Another Coat.

If People Are Being Left Behind, Impoverished Economically Or Even Culturally, They Will Always Be Easily Targeted By Demagogues Of Any Stripe, Exploiting Their Hate And Fear And Making Impossible Promises. That Impoverishment Is More Likely If We Fight A Doomed Battle Against Automation And New Technology, When What Those People Need Most Is The Ambitious New Tech That Is The Only Proven Way To Create Sustainable Industries And Jobs.

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.

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

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

The Technical Phase Can Be Boring Because There Is Little Opportunity For Creavivity, For Art. Boredom Leads To Complacency And Mistakes.

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.

Somehow, Ai Is Playing An Important Role Of Breaking Up The Ice Of Complacency. We Have A Comfortable Life, We Just Don't Want To Take Risks. Ai Is Threatening Too Many Comfortable Jobs To Make People Think About Taking Risks Again.

I’ve Seen - Both In Myself And My Competitors - How Satisfaction Can Lead To A Lack Of Vigilance, Then To Mistakes And Missed Opportunities.

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.

When [vladimir] Putin, A Former Lieutenant-colonel In The Kgb, Became Russia's President On December 31, 1999 - Eight Years After The Failed Coup Attempt Against (then Soviet Leader Mikhail) Gorbachev, And Eight Years After The People Had Torn Down The Statue Of Felix Dzerzhinsky, The Hated Founder Of The Kgb, In Moscow - It Was Admittedly A Shock. Nevertheless, I Decided To Give Putin A Chance. He Seemed Dynamic And Capable Of Learning. But I Had To Bury My Hopes After Just A Few Months. He Proved To Be An Autocrat - And, Because The West Let Him Do As He Pleased, He Became A Dictator.

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.

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

By This Measure (on The Gap Between Fischer & His Contemporaries), I Consider Him The Greatest World Champion

When Considering The Islamic World, Turkey Is The Best Example Of A Country Where Democracy Irreversibly Gained A Foothold Despite Religious And Cultural Traditions Still Respected Today. With Some Reservation, This Can Be Said About Pakistan, Too, Where We Can Observe Dynamic Political Processes Going On [and] Governments Change As A Result Of Elections. In My Opinion, It Is Up To The Ruling Elite To Initiate Cardinal Changes.

There Is A Good Chance Donald Trump Won't Survive Four Years. Conflict Of Interest Is The Biggest Danger For Trump. He Is Destroying One Of The Pillars Of The Free World. He Is Seeking To Eliminate The Very Concept Of Conflict Of Interest. A Lot Of Things In America Were Built On A Code Of Honour. I Am Confident The Damage Done By Ruling Through Family And Friends Will Be Made Impossible By Future Regulation.

Family And Friends

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.

Energy Is Connected To Physical Fitness. One Of The Reasons I Stayed At The Top So Long Is That I Was Tremendously Fit. At 36, I Was Fitter Than Most Opponents Ten Years Younger.

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

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

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'.

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

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.

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

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

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.

Donald Trump Envies Anyone Who Can Do Things He Can't.

The Only Successor To President Putin Is President Putin Himself And We Could Of Course Dream About President Putin Stepping Down Voluntarily And Picking Out Successor Which Would Be Probably As Bad As Him.

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

One Does Not Succeed By Sticking To Convention.

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

My Life Is Split In Three Parts; I Don't Know The Percentage. One Could Be Called "chess" - The Kasparov Chess Foundation, Promoting The Game, Training Young Players, Playing On The Internet, Sometimes Exhibitions. The Second Area Would Be "writing" - Books, Articles, Twitter, Facebook. And Then "political Activity" - Fighting For Human Rights And Democracy, So Tv, Interviews, Speeches.

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.

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

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.

Most Likely, The System Of Mutual Relations That Has Evolved In Eastern Europe And Asia Corresponds To Another Level Of Governance.

The Biggest Problem I See Among People Who Want To Excel In Chess – And In Business And In Life In General – Is Not Trusting Their Instincts Enough.

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

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.

The West Can't Come Up With Anything To Deal With Moscow, Except Appeasement.

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.

Rhetoric Matters, But At The End Of The Day Policy Matters More.

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

Capablanca Possessed An Amazing Ability To Quickly See Into A Position And Intuitively Grasp Its Main Features. His Style, One Of The Purest, Most Crystal-clear In The Entire History Of Chess, Astonishes One With His Logic.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

[vladimir] Putin Wants To Keep [bashar] Assad In Power And Expand His Own Military Base In Syria, Whatever The Cost. I Even Believe He Has An Interest In More And More People Fleeing The Country. The Flow Of Refugees Improves His Negotiating Position Toward The West, Including The German Chancellor.

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.

Next To The Intellectual Stimulation Of Chess, The Educational Value Is Of Great Importance. Chess Teaches Logic, Imagination, Self-discipline, And Determination.

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.

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

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.

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

We Don't Have A Choice. A United Democratic Eurasian Continent Welded Together By Common Economic Interests Is Our Only Hope And Contribution To Stability In The World. If We Fail, I Fear That Russia In Its Present Form Is In For The Most Serious Of Upheavals - The Outcome Of Which Is Extremely Unpredictable.

Botvinnik Tried To Take The Mystery Out Of Chess, Always Relating It To Situations In Ordinary Life. He Used To Call Chess A Typical Inexact Problem Similar To Those Which People Are Always Having To Solve In Everyday Life.

My Nature Is That I Have To Excite Myself With A Big Challenge.

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?"

The Downfall Of Democratic Institutions In Russia Doesn't Add To The Self-confidence Of Either [vladimir] Putin Or His Friends, As The Loss Of Power Could Lead To Repercussions In Russian Society.

Self Confidence

Rosneft, For Instance, Was Mainly Built Upon Capital Stolen From [jailed Oligarch Mikhail] Khodorkovsky's Company, But The Ipo Was Successful With Many Western Corporations Investing In It. This Means That It Is Extremely Difficult To Detect These Assets In Their Pure Form.

I've Met Enough Kgb Colonels In My Life.

Revenge For A Terror Attack Is Ideal For Putin's Model. His Propaganda Machine Will Be Filled With Scenes Of Crash Victims If [vladimir] Putin Sees The Need For A Larger War To Stoke His Domestic Support Again As The Russian Economy Teeters.

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.

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.

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.

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.

You Know, If I'm In A Bad Mood, I Always Look At The Chessboard, Just To Find Something That Can Cheer Me Up.

When I Was On An American Show In 2015, I Tried To Talk About The Threat Vladimir Putin Posed To The Free World. The Interviewer Said, "wake Me Up When He Takes Over Poland." We Heard Something Similar From Years Ago And We Ended Up With World War Two. Putin Decided To Skip Poland And Went Straight To Wisconsin. Putin Is At War, A Hybrid War, With The Free World. His Domestic Propaganda Is Based Entirely On A Strong Man Challenging The Free World. When The Demonstrations Around Russia Began, The Harsh Response Was Because It Was More Important To Show Strength.

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.

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.

Losing Can Persuade You To Change What Doesn't Need To Be Changed, And Winning Can Convince You Everything Is Fine Even If You Are On The Brink Of Disaster.

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.

In Conclusion, If You Want To Unravel The Multitude Of Secrets Of Chess Then Don't Begrudge The Time.

The Growth Of Violent Extremism Is Partly A Consequence Of How The Developed World Has Become Complacent And Defensive About Its Own Greatness And Ambition.

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.

Excelling At Chess Has Long Been Considered A Symbol Of More General Intelligence. That Is An Incorrect Assumption In My View, As Pleasant As It Might Be.

The Greeks According To Official History Used Letters For Hundreds, For Tens, And Ones.it Was Extremely Complicated. If You Talk About Archimedes, You Should Use Greek Letters.

Besides Problems Of Traditional Societies, The Caucasus Has To Cope With Quite A Few Unsettled Territorial Conflicts That Also Nurture Authoritarian Governmental Structures.

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.

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.

The Public Must Come To See That Chess Is A Violent Sport. Chess Is Mental Torture.

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.

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.

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.

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