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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.

-Garry Kasparov

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When [vladimir] Putin, A

Garry Kasparov

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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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

Chess - It's A Nonmainstream Game. And The Irony Is That When You Look At Hollywood, It Kept Using Chess As The Symbol Of Intelligence For Its Heroes, For Its Top Characters, All The Time. So It's From "casablanca" To "harry Potter." You Always Have Chess As A Very Important Element To Demonstrate Intelligence, While In Normal Life People Think It's Just A Weird Intelligence - Like Ai.

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.

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.

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

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.

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].

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.

...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.

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

[vladimir] Putin Needs Wars To Legitimize His Position.

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

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.

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

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

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.

All Women Are Inferior To Men.

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

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

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.

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.

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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.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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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'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.

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.

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We've Been Saying Putin Is A Dictator For Years Who Doesn't Care About The Law.

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

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

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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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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?

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Perfectly Correct Chess Exists Only In Theory.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

People's Minds Are Polluted By These Dark Pictures Of The Future From Hollywood: "the Terminator," The Skynet, "the Matrix." It's World Where There's No Room For Humans, Or They Have To Fight Against The Machines. I Think It's Just A Way, Way, Way, Way In The Future. Is It Going To Happen? I Don't Know. For Me, These Debates Are Not Similar, But They Resemble Debates About How The Sun Will Turn Into A Supernova In 4 To 5 Billion Years. Frankly, I Don't Care.

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 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.

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.

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

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.

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?"

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.

In Chess, Bigamy Is Acceptable But Monarchy Is Absolute.

In Syria, Vladimir Putin Sees The Chance To Make Millions Of Refugees And Weaponise Them. The Us Has To Take A Lead In Defending The Values Of The Free World.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

Bad Experiences

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 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.

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.

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.

There's The Blazing Russian Caucasus, With An Ongoing War All Against All, Which Is Not To Be Neglected.

[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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

It's True That In Chess As In Politics, Fund-raising And Glad-handing Matter.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

I've Met Enough Kgb Colonels In My Life.

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.

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.

The Handover Of Power To [dmitry] Medvedev Was Rather Painless, Everybody Thought That The Waves Would Calm Automatically. By Now, It's Quite Clear That [vladimir] Putin Doesn't Want To Relinquish The Levers Of Power.

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.

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

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.

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

Chess Is An Art And Not A Spectator Sport.

It Is Rather Difficult To Envisage A Scenario That Could Change The Domestic Situation In The Countries Of The South Caucasus Without Solving The Problems Constantly Hindering Normal Cooperation In The Region.

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 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».

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

The Stock Market And The Gridiron And The Battlefield Aren't As Tidy As The Chessboard, But In All Of Them, A Single, Simple Rule Holds True: Make Good Decisions And You'll Succeed; Make Bad Ones And You'll Fail.

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

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

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?

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

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.

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

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.

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

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 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.

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.

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'.

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

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

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.

It Is Quite Clear, However, That There Won't Be Any Real Changes With The Current Clan Structure Having Seized Power In The Course Of The Karabakh Conflict.

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

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 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.

One Does Not Succeed By Sticking To Convention.

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

Looking Forward

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

My Opponent Is Short And The Match Will Be Short.

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.

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.

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.

Nowadays, A 13-year-old Would Probably Know More Than Bobby Fischer Knew When He Retired. They Analyse All The Moves And Prepare Themselves On Their Computers. But That Doesn’t Mean They Are Special.

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.

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.

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

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 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

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

Putin Is Like Al Capone.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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 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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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