Sunday, March 20, 2005
The Great Chess Game
Gary Kasporov uses this OpinionJournal Article to tell us why he is retiring from competitive chess after 20 years at the top and what he plans to do next. He has a lot of insight into how we think and make decisions. Not content merely to impart this knowledge to others, he plans to employ it and his considerable talent as a political advocate for democracy in Russia.
The youngest World Chess champion ever, Mr. Kasporov was the ultimate challenge for the biggest and best of the chess computing machines - "Deep Blue", "Fritz", and "Juinor". To Kasporov, these high profile matches were more than man-machine contests :
" they were also helpful in revealing how humans make decisions. These computers looked at millions of positions per second, weighing each one to find the mathematically best moves. And yet a human, seeing just two or three positions per second, but guided by intuition and experience, could compete with the mighty machines."
Fascinated with the nature of decision making, he is writing a book on how life imitates chess for release this fall by Penguin. "It examines the unique formulae people use in thinking and problem-solving. For example, the way hope and doubt affect how we process information, or the way we perform in a crisis. I hope it will also serve as a guide to improving these processes."
It should be an intriguing book, with gems like this on chess themes in life: "For example: the difference between tactics and strategy; how to train your intuition; and maintaining creativity in an era of analysis. In particular, the topic of intuition is intriguing. When I analyzed a 1894 world championship game between Lasker and Wilhelm Steinitz, I also looked at their post-game analysis and the comments of other top players of the day. They all made more mistakes in analysis than the players had made during the game! The intuitive decisions of the players during the game were correct in most cases, and more often so than when they had all the time in the world to analyze later."
Kasporov believes chess has much to offer the world. Youngsters can benefit from disciplined thinking, friendly competition, and learning about the consequences of their decisions. The U.S.-based Kasparov Chess Foundation supports chess in schools. Chess also provides a sound holistic basis for thinking about complex world problems.
"There is something to be said for a chess player's ability to see the whole board. Many politicians are so focused on one problem, or a single aspect of a problem, that they remain unaware that solving it may require action on something that appears unrelated. It is natural for a chess player, by contrast, to look at the big picture. ....
Like everyone, I am dismayed by the long list of problems facing the world today. I am more concerned about the even longer list of proposed solutions and how many of them are considered by their proponents to be exclusive. Instead of looking at the whole board, they are focusing too narrowly and as a result devise narrow solutions. Our leaders must be able to think more ambitiously."
Chess at the higher levels requires more than just holistic thought; it takes patience, a keen sense of timing, and the ability to act decisively. Mr. Kasporov seems to have what it takes to be a very formidable political strategist. He certainly has a realistic vision of the world today : " This is a time for ambition. Victory in Ukraine and the reshaping of the Middle East are only the latest symbols of how democracy is dominant in the world today economically, militarily, and morally. We must leverage this ascendancy to set a global agenda and end the era of complacency and concession that is embodied by the United Nations. In politics as in chess, or in the military or in business, when you have the advantage you must press it quickly--or lose it. For the first time in history, we are in a position to checkmate tyranny. Momentum is largely on the side of democracy."
I'm glad he is on our side and wish him success in his great chess game of Global Statescraft.
The youngest World Chess champion ever, Mr. Kasporov was the ultimate challenge for the biggest and best of the chess computing machines - "Deep Blue", "Fritz", and "Juinor". To Kasporov, these high profile matches were more than man-machine contests :
" they were also helpful in revealing how humans make decisions. These computers looked at millions of positions per second, weighing each one to find the mathematically best moves. And yet a human, seeing just two or three positions per second, but guided by intuition and experience, could compete with the mighty machines."
Fascinated with the nature of decision making, he is writing a book on how life imitates chess for release this fall by Penguin. "It examines the unique formulae people use in thinking and problem-solving. For example, the way hope and doubt affect how we process information, or the way we perform in a crisis. I hope it will also serve as a guide to improving these processes."
It should be an intriguing book, with gems like this on chess themes in life: "For example: the difference between tactics and strategy; how to train your intuition; and maintaining creativity in an era of analysis. In particular, the topic of intuition is intriguing. When I analyzed a 1894 world championship game between Lasker and Wilhelm Steinitz, I also looked at their post-game analysis and the comments of other top players of the day. They all made more mistakes in analysis than the players had made during the game! The intuitive decisions of the players during the game were correct in most cases, and more often so than when they had all the time in the world to analyze later."
Kasporov believes chess has much to offer the world. Youngsters can benefit from disciplined thinking, friendly competition, and learning about the consequences of their decisions. The U.S.-based Kasparov Chess Foundation supports chess in schools. Chess also provides a sound holistic basis for thinking about complex world problems.
"There is something to be said for a chess player's ability to see the whole board. Many politicians are so focused on one problem, or a single aspect of a problem, that they remain unaware that solving it may require action on something that appears unrelated. It is natural for a chess player, by contrast, to look at the big picture. ....
Like everyone, I am dismayed by the long list of problems facing the world today. I am more concerned about the even longer list of proposed solutions and how many of them are considered by their proponents to be exclusive. Instead of looking at the whole board, they are focusing too narrowly and as a result devise narrow solutions. Our leaders must be able to think more ambitiously."
Chess at the higher levels requires more than just holistic thought; it takes patience, a keen sense of timing, and the ability to act decisively. Mr. Kasporov seems to have what it takes to be a very formidable political strategist. He certainly has a realistic vision of the world today : " This is a time for ambition. Victory in Ukraine and the reshaping of the Middle East are only the latest symbols of how democracy is dominant in the world today economically, militarily, and morally. We must leverage this ascendancy to set a global agenda and end the era of complacency and concession that is embodied by the United Nations. In politics as in chess, or in the military or in business, when you have the advantage you must press it quickly--or lose it. For the first time in history, we are in a position to checkmate tyranny. Momentum is largely on the side of democracy."
I'm glad he is on our side and wish him success in his great chess game of Global Statescraft.
