Karim’s Blog

in german: http://www.spiegel.de/netzwelt/tech/0,1518,450147,00.html 

Kopf gegen Chip: http://www.stern.de/sport-motor/sportwelt/577120.html 

Interview with Kramnik: http://www.stern.de/sport-motor/sportwelt/577085.html 

English translation: http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=3504

The starting fee for the world champion is 500,000 Euros. If he wins the match Kramnik gets one million Euros. Between him and the second half of the prize sum stands a machine that examines around six billion positions before it makes each move.

But it is not just about the money. If the world champion should lose this match against Deep Fritz, and lose it badly, one would have to admit that our electronic slaves have overtaken their human masters in yet another area of intellectual activity. Kramnik knows this full well. “Perhaps I will be the last top player to face this challenge,” he said.

Good article in ‘Scientific American’ on how 

Studies of the mental processes of chess grandmasters have revealed clues to how people become experts in other fields as well

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=00010347-101C-14C1-8F9E83414B7F4945&chanID=sa006

… chess has served as the greatest single test bed for theories of thinking–the “Drosophila of cognitive science,” as it has been called.

Chess in Dallas is not comparable to chess in Los Angeles in terms of strong tournaments and high rated players. Even though UT Dallas has the best US college chess team with a few GMs/IMs, there are not that many tournaments in Dallas where these players participate. Still they have an active chess club (Dallas Chess Club) that runs several tournaments per month.

My first tournament was not that competitive, but I cannot complain. With some luck, I got the first place, some money and some rating points. 

The second tournament was not that lucky. After a lousy start and the regular first round loss, I went to win the next three rounds, to reach the final round half a point behind and playing for the first place against a 2200 master. I was close to get it.

This is the position I reached in the final round with Black against the 2200 master. Here I played 33. … Qb4 and after 34.Qxb4 Bxb4 35.Kf1, I accepted the draw (the bishop is still better, but it is hard to find a win), got the second place and a small prize.

Later on, I discovered that I had 33. … Qa1+ taking the a4 pawn, winning the game and taking the first place and prize (I saw the other two checks Qc1+ and Qe1+, but somehow I missed the right check). Bad luck!

It seems Kasparov retirement has boldened others to cross the 2800 line. Topalov and Anand deserve it.

http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=3016