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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.

-Garry Kasparov

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To Play Chess On

Garry Kasparov

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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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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One Does Not Succeed By Sticking To Convention.

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I've Met Enough Kgb Colonels In My Life.

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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.

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

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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.

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Bad Experiences

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Chess Is Mental Torture.

Few Things Are As Psychologically Brutal As Chess.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

Unfortunately, In Russia This "asian Mentality,"still Comes To The Fore. But At The Same Time, It Is Obvious That There Is A Certain Orientation Toward The West. In The End, This Is A Fragile Balancing Act Between The Asian Manner Of Governance And High Living Standards That Are Guaranteed Through Western Technology.

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.

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.

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.

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.

I Started Playing Chess When I Was Five Years Old. I Learned The Moves From My Mother, Then Worked With My Father - And Later Trainers. My Style Became Very Technical. I Sacrificed A Lot Of Things. I Was Always Hunting For The King, For The Mate. I'd Forget About My Other Pieces.

[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.

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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

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.

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.

Chess Is An Art And Not A Spectator Sport.

Moscow Is Simply Unwilling To Recognize The Right Of Self-determination Of Nations.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

Anything That We Know How We Do, Machines Will Do Better. Now, The Key Element Of This Phrase Is, "we Know How We Do It." Because We Do Many Things Without Knowing Exactly How We Do Them. So This Is The Area Where Machines Are Vulnerable, Because It Still Has To Learn From Some Kind Of Experience. It Needs Something - At Least The Rules Of The Game. You Have To Bring In Something That Will Help The Machine To Start Learning. It's Like Square One. If There's Nothing There, If You Can't Explain It, That's A Problem.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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 Ability To Work Hard For Days On End Without Losing Focus Is A Talent. The Ability To Keep Absorbing New Information After Many Hours Of Study Is A Talent.

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.

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.

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

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 Master Looks At Every Move He Would Like To Make, Especially The Impossible Ones

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.

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

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

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.

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

[vladimir] Putin Needs Wars To Legitimize His Position.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

If We Look To The South, To Iran, Which Cannot Be "accused" Of Excess Democratic Zeal - It Goes Without Saying That The Unstable Situation Does Not Prepare The Ground For A Democratic Development.

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.

[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.

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.

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.

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

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

Looking Forward

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

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."

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

Results Show That Just One Year Of Chess Tuition Will Improve A Student's Learning Abilities, Concentration, Application, Sense Of Logic, Self-discipline, Respect, Behavior And The Ability To Take Responsibility For His/her Own Actions.

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?

Even Well-known Historians Like Edward Gibbon Are Talking About How The Soldiers Of The 18th Century Were Not Able To Do The Same Type Of Exercise [like Romans].

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

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.

[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.

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.

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.

At Any Time The Atmosphere In The West Could Change, For Which Determined Political Will I Do Not See At The Moment Is A Necessary Prerequisite. From The Sidelines, It Seems That He's Caught Up In His Own Exorbitant Ambitions.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?"

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

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 Can't Think Of A Scenario Under Which [vladimir Putin] Would Gradually Resign From Power. For Him And Those Around Him, Power Became A Source Of Unlimited Enrichment. A Loss Of Power Would Be Tantamount To An Annihilation Of The Economic Success That Has Been Achieved So Far.

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

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

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.

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.

Karabakh Conflict Has A Strong Influence On The Political Climate Both In Azerbaijan And Armenia. It Is Obvious, Too, That The Azerbaijani Leadership Can Capitalize Indefinitely On This Topic To Underpin Its Legitimacy Even In A Situation In Which Democratic Institutions Are Virtually Eliminated.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

All Women Are Inferior To Men.

[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.

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.

My Opponent Is Short And The Match Will Be Short.

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

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.

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.

I See My Own Style As Being A Symbiosis Of The Styles Of Alekhine, Tal And Fischer.

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.

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.

Any Experienced Player Knows How A Change In The Character Of The Play Influences Your Psychological Mood.

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

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

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