Feng-Hsiung Hsu, the system architect of Deep Blue, suggests that it was a deliberate 'anti-computer' move by Kasparov. The upcoming sacrifice is well known to theory and Kasparov must have known about it (in fact, there are some reports that he even wrote an article supporting 8.Nxe6 as a refutation). The normal 7.Bd6 8.Qe2 h6 9.Ne4 Nxe4 10.Qxe4 was played in Kasparov(!)–Kamsky, 1994 and Kasparov–Epishin, 1995, among other games. It has been suggested that it was a blunder and Kasparov got his opening moves mixed up, playing. ''He had a stronger position, but we went for exchanges, and he failed to notice my passing move.A strange choice by Kasparov, one of the most theoretically knowledgeable players in chess history. How did he do it? ''I tried my best, but mostly it was luck,'' Mr. Then it was Mikhail Kreitzberg, an 18-year-old former Muscovite now doing his Israeli military service. Next to win was Mikhail Lurie, 14, the Israeli 14-and-under champion. Kasparov trouble, as he made ever longer stops at their boards and wagged his head in disapproval. By then it was also apparent that some other players were giving Mr. He played only the white pieces, thus having the advantage of the first move.Īfter about an hour and a half, a burst of muted applause marked Mr. Kasparov strode in promptly at 5 P.M., made a brisk introductory tour of the 25 players ranged in a square, and set to work with his customary intensity, moving rapidly from board to board to make the first move. Kasparov was to publicize the imported talent and prod the Government to support Israeli chess. ''The entire Israeli team that won the European championship is Russian,'' Mr. Not surprisingly, given the traditional prominence of Jews among Russian grandmasters and the huge numbers of Russian Jews who have immigrated to Israel in recent years, there was more Russian than Hebrew spoken. The simultaneous match at a hall in Jerusalem was the opening event. Kasparov, the son of a Jewish father and an Armenian mother, arrived in Israel on Sunday to help inaugurate a national championship tournament and to visit the developing Kasparov Chess Academy in Ramat Aviv. ''I played thousands of games, and I won them all,'' he said. He said he had little time for chess during his dissident years in the Soviet Union, but he recovered his skills in prison, where he said he spent the long days in solitary confinement playing three simultaneous games in his mind. ''The game was aesthetically very interesting,'' he said with pride.
But as a player who once dreamed of becoming world champion himself, and who won the championship of his native Donetsk at age 15, the victory was obviously sweet. He acknowledged that the field was stacked against the champion. Sharansky was the first of the 25 players to score a victory - a feat that also won him an electronic chess game. With Sharansky, I made a bad mistake, and he punished me.'' And this has a snowball effect - I make one mistake, I get angry, then I make another mistake and really lose control. And with players with high ratings, every mistake costs you a game.
''Concentration is the key to my game,'' he said, ''and if it's lost I can make a stupid mistake. But you saw it - everybody was talking, everybody was walking around in the middle of the circle, giving out coffee, or sodas, or television cameras.'' But then you have to create the proper conditions, you have to show respect for me. ''I'm probably the only player who would even attempt something like this.
''I knew from the very beginning it would be difficult, but I accepted because it was Israel,'' he said. The level of players was unusually strong for a simultaneous match of that size - it included most the Israeli youth team that had just won the European high-school championship - and the noise and commotion that the organizers allowed made it impossible to concentrate, he said. Contacted a few hours later by telephone, Mr.