Talk:Garry Kasparov

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He first started learning to play chess after studying a chess problem set up by his parents, and proposed a solution to it.

I don't understand. How can you start learning to play chess after solving a chess problem? The rules of chess are not intuitive.

No idea, but he studied this chess board for quite some time and then offered a possible solution to his parents, who seemed a little surprised too. They then decided to teach him to play chess. Does sound strange, but its been mentioned in quite a number of books and magazines I've read over the years.

Also there's quite a distinction between learning the moves of chess, and learning how to play chess well. The first can take a month, the latter a lifetime and not succeed. I'm referring to Garry learning to play chess in regards to making a living with it, not learning the basic moves - apologies.

I made a revision to the line in question. Hopefully, it should be clearer. fvincent 19:28, Dec 3, 2003 (UTC)

His first name is Gari or Gary ???

Neither. Since he's Russian so it would be in Cyrillic (Don't even ask me about the spelling combinations of Korchnoi, Ivanchuk and Nimzowitsch I've seen - its all because the names are non-English, and created in "other" letters :-) ). A rough translation would be Garri, but commonly in English print he's referred to as Garry (two R's in both cases).

What would Gary Kasparov do when his in midgame with his wife during a picnic and the rain starts tumbling down? She's about to defend a check mate move - does he stay and get wet for the kill or does he call it a draw (effecting the win/loss ration). It's tough, I'll give you that.

I'd like to see some discussion of politics. I remember his playing under the Russian flag in perestroika time in spite of being born in Azerbaijan. It seems interesting. -- Error 02:43 May 7, 2003 (UTC)

Well, during the time of perestroika he played for the USSR, of course (and Azerbaijan was part of the USSR), but since then he's played for Russia, yes. I don't think it's particularly significant politically - it's just that he's lived in Russia for most of his life, hasn't he? There's something that could be said about politics here, though - Kasparov's been heavily involved in the politics of chess, and I think he had some involvement in Russian politics following the collapse of the USSR. --Camembert

Probably I remembered something like http://www.mark-weeks.com/chess/90kk$$.htm :

Both players should have displayed the flag of the Soviet Union, but Kasparov chose to use the new tricolor Russian flag to show support for Boris Yeltsin. Karpov protested on the grounds that FIDE rules dictated that "miniature flags of the nations to which the players belong are to be placed on the table". Appeals jury Lim Kok An and Bessel Kok decided that there would be no flags.

And was he ethnically Russian, Armenian or Jew?

-- Error 03:34 May 7, 2003 (UTC)

Answering myself http://pkchess.bizland.com/chesspress/chesspress6/cpress6_4.html :

Can we forget that he was the first who fought successfully even in the Soviet times to ban the monopoly of the Soviet government on the earnings of Soviet sportsmen and chess players? Or that he was the first to play under the Russian flag against Karpov in New York in 1990 when the communists were still in power in the Soviet Union? Can we forget his help to the Chernobyl victims or the Armenian refugees during the pogroms in Baku in January 1991?

And http://www.twoplustwo.com/digests/excharch_dec00_msg.html

Quiz #1: Kasparov's parents are Jewish and Armenian, he was born in Azerbaijan, and he chooses(in the past, at least) to play under the Russian flag. 'What' is he?

-- Error

Ah yes, I see what you mean - I forgot about the 1990 business. He's certainly been very politically involved - you're right, it'd be interesting to see something about that side of him here (I'm not the person to write it though, I fear). --Camembert

Garri Kasparov is a rat. I clearly remember in the old communist days of the Soviet Union how he was a 'proud' member of the communist party and how he pretended to be dedicated to the party. When things started to change, he adjusted accordingly, and when the game was over (no pun intended) he started to bad mouth the old system. His chess politics have been even more hypocritical and dirty. It should be noted also that he is the only grandmaster known so far, to have cheated in an official chess game and caught on camera. In Linares 1994 tournament, he was playing black again J. Polgar ... he moved his knight to a square that would have been a losing move for him, he let go of the piece, then he grabbed the knight again and put it on another square. After the game it was shown that his cheating was cpatured on a camera. This is Garri Kasparov in a nutshell. Also, his main strength in chess is his home preparation and database-like memorized openings, as clearly evident from most of his games.

Yeah, well, most Communists stopped actually believing in the Party after about 1970-1980, but simply said they believe in it: a. to stay alive and b. to avoid censure by the government. Tom Clancy novels describe that well. ugen64 02:06, Dec 4, 2003 (UTC)

'J'adoube.'

You're entitled to your opinion of course, but I don't see how anybody can seriously believe that in light of Kasparov-Topalov, Wijk aan Zee 1999. --Camembert

Where does this estimated X3D Fritz rating (2807) come from? --Camembert

Answering my own question: it's quoted as 2807 on X3D's site. I'd like to know how they came up with the number, but I'll guess we never will. --Camembert

I am not sure where the rating of that particular chess program/machine comes from, but I can tell you something about this subject. I used to be an active tournamet chess player. Many official tournaments allow computer chess programs to participate just like a regular human player. Usually the programmers who write chess programs like to take their programs to tournaments for obvious reasons. Therefore, in the case of such programs, their rating is based on their performance in chess tournaments just like any regular player.

Yes, I know that, but this particular version of Fritz was, as I understand it, tweaked compared to other versions specifically for Kasparov, and had not played (publically) against any rated player before this match. I suppose they based the rating on the performance of other versions of Fritz. My curiousity was aroused, really, by the unusually precise nature of the estimate - normally, when people guess at the rating of programs, they'll say "oh, it's about 2750" or "around 2600" - some nice round number like that. 2807 seemed spookily precise to just be guessing at it. Still, we've got the source for the estimate now, so I'm happy. --Camembert

This page was listed on Wikipedia:Brilliant prose candidates. At User:Eloquence's suggestion I added some headings. However I don't mind if the content writers of this article don't like it and want to revert to the plainer version. Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 13:25, 4 Dec 2003 (UTC)

I like it. I was going to do something similar myself, but was too lazy :) --Camembert

human's days are numbered.

Xah P0lyglut 04:56, 2003 Dec 13 (UTC)

Here: ...as well as defending his title three times against his arch-opponent Karpov.
Anatoly Karpov: ...fighting Kasparov in over five arduous World Championship matches...
Seems inconsistent to me. -- Jao 17:21, 9 Feb 2004 (UTC)

It may seem so, but it is not. The first match was played in 1984 - Karpov was champion and Kasparov was challenger - the match was abandoned without result. The second match, still with Karpov as champion, was the following year - Kasparov won. The two subsequently played three more matches (in 1986, 1987 and 1990) in which Kasparov was defending his title. Therefore, five matches played, three of them with Kasparov defending his title. (Unless you mean the fault is with the tautological "in over", which gives the midleading impression there were more than five matches) --Camembert

The context at Anatoly Karpov with "remained" seemed to exclude the 1984 and 1985 matches, though. (And yes, "over" has to mean "more than", but that's not what I thought of.) But the new wording is very clear, thanks for that. -- Jao 21:04, 9 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I feel it should be mentioned how he puts his watch on the table and when he is confident he will win, he puts it back on his arm. This is just something I heard today. Maybe someone who knows more of these little things that are to him in his way of acting during matches or general personality - like in Bobby Fischer - could add to this and write it somewhere in there? --Lenton 15:55, Mar 22, 2004 (UTC)

No discussion of his rivalry with Karpov? I had inserted it into the Karpov page, perhaps we should do so here?--Etaonish 14:48, 15 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Historical revisionism and Kasparov

On the Historical revisionism page, it states, Finally the term "historical revisionism", or simply "revisionism" is used sometimes to refer to specific revisionist theories associated with the famous chess player Garry Kasparov, which believe that the events of what are known as the last 3,000 years occurred in either a much shorter or a much longer time frame, and attempts to explain how. Does anybody know what they are talking about? If Kasparov is involved, why is nothing said about this on this page? ChessPlayer 12:46, 9 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

I've never heard of it before. It sounds like the sort of belief that somebody might hold, but I've never heard of Kasparov holding it. I'm going to remove that paragraph to talk:historical revisionism. --Camembert

I have once heard some wacko theory that the middle ages was something like 400 years shorter than we think it was, however, I do not remember where I read it. Danny 17:01, 9 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

Turns out I was wrong. In case anybody is interested, see Talk:Historical revisionism for the end of this (slightly bizarre) story - Danny found an article by Kasparov showing he does indeed believe this stuff.

We could put a mention of this in this article, I suppose. We probably also ought to mention his involvement with Russian politics (wasn't he on the team of that Presidential candidate who got kidnapped in the elections this year (or was it last year? I forget)). I'll probably do it myself eventually if nobody else does, but I'd need to look some stuff up. --Camembert

Link merit?

The link at the bottom of the page to Kasparov's editorial on terrorism seems to have little to do with his chess career or life. Is this really necessary? I'd be interested in hearing the view of others.

-SocratesJedi (not logged in -__-)