Chess - The Scotsman 27/06/2012

Published on 27/06/2012 02:37

Wednesday’s puzzle...

WHAT is the link between Garry Kasparov, former world champion and arguably the greatest player ever, and Second World War genius Alan Turing, who died of cyanide poisoning nine years before Kasparov was born?

The link is computers and experiments in artificial intelligence. In 1944, at secret MI6 establishment Hanslope Park near Bletchely Park, Turing (who led the team that broke the Enigma codes) talked of “building a brain”.

He is credited with creating the first chess-playing computer program in his quest for artificial intelligence (AI) in building his brain. Turing was so far ahead of his time, that he wrote the program before the computer had been invented for him to run it on. After Turing died, other pioneers continued to use chess as their benchmark for AI experiments.

Scroll forward 50 years and IBM chess computer Deep Blue beats the best human player in the world – Kasparov – ending this part of the experiment that had begun with Turing. Both forces came together earlier this week though with Kasparov being one of the keynote speakers at the Alan Turing Centenary Conference in Manchester.

He came face-to-face with the original Turing chess program from 1950 and, instead of “blowing a fuse”, as he did when he lost to IBM’s Deep Blue, Kasparov had a much easier time of it, as he crushed it in only 16 moves. The game, which did though have a lot of historical value to it, was a showcase of the first chess computer program ever written, being seen for the first time in action in public.

Kasparov also unveiled a blue plaque to Turing at Manchester University, with the words: “In the sweep of history, there are a few individuals about whom we can say the world would be a very different place had they not been born.”

Turing COMP - G Kasparov

Turing 100

1 e3 Nf6 2 Nc3 d5 3 Nh3 e5 4 Qf3 Nc6 5 Bd3 e4 6 Bxe4 dxe4 7 Nxe4 Be7 8 Ng3 0–0 9 0–0 Bg4 10 Qf4 Bd6 11 Qc4 Bxh3 12 gxh3 Qd7 13 h4 Qh3 14 b3 Ng4 15 Re1 Qxh2+ 16 Kf1 Qxf2 checkmate 0-1