Anatoly Vorobey. Revival of the epic

Revival of the epic
Anatoly Vorobey

Date of publication: October 16, 2001

" Bobby Fisher is playing chess on a network server!" The level of credibility of this statement is about the same as that of “My mother-in-law was abducted by aliens!” You can laugh and forget. possible It was until recently.

Now, when many rumors have lined up in an orderly chain, famous grandmasters have publicly stated that they played chess with Fischer over the Internet, and even some games are available for viewing on the Internet - it is no longer possible to brush aside such an absurd statement. You have to, reluctantly (or, to be honest, with greedy curiosity and secret hope), try to understand what is actually happening.

***

Playing chess over the Internet is a very old invention by network standards. Chess was played on the Internet back in the 80s - in the prehistoric era. In 1992, a team of programmers created a particularly convenient “chess server” and called it ICC - Internet Chess Club . ICC quickly overtook all other servers that existed at that time in popularity and continues to lead today, under the name www.chessclub.com . True, several years ago the free service at ICC was canceled, and now you have to pay for the privilege of using the server. The most popular free server - www.freechess.org - is still inferior to the ICC in terms of the number of players and especially in the number of highly qualified masters and grandmasters using the server.

What does it mean - a chess server, and how is it used? You need to download and install a special “client” program; After launch, it draws a chessboard with pieces, connects itself via the Internet to the server, and transmits chess moves and other commands in both directions. On the servers you can not only play chess: you can communicate with your opponent or any other player, you can “spy” on other people’s games, participate in automatically organized tournaments - and much more you can do. But the most important conveniences of the game server are automatic control of the time of each of the two players and automatic calculation of the player’s rating, which changes depending on the results of his games.

***

Bobby Fischer - the 11th world champion, the hope of American chess, the threat of Soviet players, who broke the long-term monopoly of the “Russians” on the chess throne - won his title in 1972, defeating the 10th world champion Spassky. Fischer was 29 years old at the time. On the way to the match with Spassky, he accomplished several impossible feats, for example, beating two other contenders “dry” with a score of 6:0. Without any doubt, in 1972 he is the strongest player on the planet. Getting him to play, however, turns out to be a very difficult task - Fischer imagines the machinations of Jews and communists everywhere, he believes in a worldwide Jewish conspiracy against humanity and a Soviet conspiracy against him personally. After winning the match with Spassky, he did not play a single official game for three years. In 1975, the time came to defend his title in a match with young Anatoly Karpov. Long and tedious negotiations about the terms of the match lead nowhere; Fischer is fussy, putting forward more and more demands. In the end, the world chess organization FIDE strips him of the title of world champion and assigns this title to Karpov. Fischer is now convinced that the conspirators achieved their goal. He leaves the chess world.

Over the next 18 years, his name comes up from time to time in connection with various scandals, but, alas, not chess scandals. In 1992, however, Fischer returned - to play one match with his long-time rival Spassky (by that time already out of the top hundred best players in the world), defeat him, receive more than three million dollars for the victory, and finally quarrel with the authorities (the match was held in Yugoslavia, in violation of American sanctions; an arrest warrant has now been issued for Fischer and he has been barred from entering the United States) and disappear again. He is said to live in Japan; they say he lives in Budapest; they say he lives in the Philippines. From time to time he gives interviews to a Philippine radio station; in these interviews he explains in detail how the Jews rule the world, why he was and remains the world champion and what he will do to all his enemies when the time comes. Here you can listen to recordings of all these interviews, and read various crazy documents related to Fischer - for example, his letter to the editors of the Jewish Encyclopedia demanding that they stop insulting his dignity and stop calling him a Jew.

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Rumors began to multiply about six months ago. The scenario in all cases was the same: a certain stranger comes incognito, as a “guest,” to the ICC server (you can play “guest” games on the server for free, but the server then does not store any information about the visitor and his rating - and other players do not know anything about him known). He suggests playing "blitz" - three minutes for the entire game - to strong grandmasters and masters. At the beginning of each game, he makes several monstrously weak moves (as a rule, he brings the king ahead), which, in a game with opponents of this level, are simply bound to ensure his loss. However, despite this gigantic handicap, he wins and wins and wins again, often winning dry in matches of a dozen or more games.

Who could it be?

Either a computer program or a person.

In principle, it costs nothing for a good chess program to beat a grandmaster in blitz with three-minute control, even if some joker deliberately forces it to start the game with very weak moves (in blitz, the computer’s ability to quickly check options by brute force makes all the difference, since even a strong human player there is simply no time to properly calculate the options; he inevitably plays on a whim). The problem, however, is that the "stranger" makes small tactical mistakes from time to time (the program never does this), and also often makes typically non-computer moves. It's actually not easy to explain what it is, but strong players usually have a good sense of the computer style of play. And "stranger" should not.

Perhaps the “stranger” is not a program, but some strong player in tandem with a program running parallel to the game and analyzing options; the player, as a rule, follows the recommendations of the program, but sometimes he deliberately “yawns” or makes unexpected moves in order to create a “human” impression. This is possible, indeed, but quite difficult with a control of three minutes per game. You have to play too quickly to have time to duplicate your opponent’s moves in the program and wait for her recommendations. But still, this option cannot be completely ignored.

Suppose, however, that the "stranger" is a person; who is he? Those grandmasters whom he defeated claim that only two people in the world are capable of this: Kasparov and Fischer. But Kasparov has absolutely no need to do this, and it’s not in his spirit; In addition, Nigel Short, a British grandmaster and one of the strongest players in the world, who recently spoke in print about his games with a “stranger,” claims: Kasparov is not capable of this. He played blitz with Kasparov many times, and although Kasparov is stronger than him, but not that much.

Then - Fischer??? The mere suggestion is breathtaking.

"The Stranger" seems to have a good grasp of the chess world of the 60s; Short claims that he answered several questions about Fischer's long-played and little-known games instantly and correctly. Fischer, moreover, smashed everyone and everything in blitz with even more amazing results than in ordinary chess. But that was 30 years ago! In chess, 30 years is an eternity; 30 years (whatever, even five years) without participating in tournaments is an absolute guarantee of a sharp decline in the level of play. All this, however, is true for mere mortals. Fischer is no mere mortal. Fischer is a legend, a genius among geniuses, a demigod. It does not obey the normal laws of biology.

***

There is something legendary about this, in the most literal sense of the word. This is a plot from legends, epics, fairy tales and songs.

Odysseus returns to Ithaca and, unrecognized, competes with a crowd of suitors and defeats them all.

Richard the Lionheart returns to England incognito - and defeats everyone in knightly tournaments.

Bobby Fischer returns to the chess world incognito - and defeats leading grandmasters in blitz with shameful scores. If he is so strong in blitz now, 30 years after his active chess career was interrupted, what could he be capable of in a regular game?

Really, for a chess lover, this plot is in no way inferior to either Homer’s or Walterscott’s. That's why everything is buzzing around, and that's why it's so important, you really want to understand who - or what - is hiding behind clumsy names like guest82 .