Jack Elfrink Dot Com

Let me tell you the story about a game of chess played in 1999. World champion Garry Kasparov played against the entire world at once. Each side took 24 hours for each move, posting therm on the Internet by way of Microsoft’s gamezone web page, with the “world” move being voted on by anyone and everyone who wanted to join in. It is a game that Kasparov himself said was the “greatest game in the history of chess”.

 

But it is also the story of Irina Krush. She has won the U.S. Womens chess championship only the year before. Her, along with three other chess professionals, were hired by Microsoft to act as coaches in a way for the world team. And the world team needed all the help it could get.

 

Right away, problems became obvious. Results from the voting process showed that some people on the world team were voting for moves that were not even legal. The bulitian board system set up to aid in the world team coordinating their moves was a total flamewar. And the other three annalists clearly didn’t have their heart in the game.

 

But Krush real got into the spirit of things. She knew that this game, win or loose, would be one for the history books. Diving head first into the forums, she was able to wade through the mess located within and round everyone up into a well organized group. The analysis section she maintained became the focal point of the entire forums.

 

Her commentary itself was amazing. Of the four annalists hired, only her recommended moves came with clear and compelling commentary. Even if you didn’t understand chess at all, the way she presented herself, and wrote so well, made it clear to everyone that she knew what the heck she was doing. Gradually the world team started following in her lead.

 

Then came move ten.

 

I should explain that the first dozen or so moves of a chess game typicaly fit into some form of known pattern. These opening salvos go by strange and exotic names. The Stonewall. The Vienna Gambit. The Norwald Variation. The Bishops Opening. Or my personally favoritely named one, the Short-Nunn Attack. (Named because it was first analyzed by British chess masters Nigel Short and John Nunn. Not that you send a short nun to attack your opponent)

 

On the tenth move of the Kasprov vs world game, Irina Krush broke free from the standard well known opening salvos and suggested a new and novel approach of her own invention. One that has since become called “the World Opening”. The battle on the board became frighteningly bloody after the world team voted in favor of it. The courage that Krush showed in jumping into such a unexplored and dangerous plan was amazing.

 

Six moves later, Kasprovs front line had been wiped out, and all of the pieces he had moved into position so far had been wiped out. Only the pices remaining on his first row remained. Stunned by the ferocity he was facing, Kasprov began claiming that groups of chess professionals were teaming up unexpectedly.

 

But by move 18 each of the other three hired annalists agreed on one move, and Krush favored a different one. The suggestion by Krush won. Move 19 had a strong recommendation come through the prestigious soviet chess ‘GM School’. But again, a different suggestion by Krush won the vote. Clearly the bulitian board readers, rallied by the determination and commitment by Krush, was coming onto its own.

 

The board was getting riped to smithereens. By move 24 only a handful of pieces were left for each side. Battle plans shifted. In chess, when a pawn reaches the far side of the board, it is traded for a more powerful piece. The race was on to see who would be the first to accomplish this goal.

 

Move 32 is when the race really began to heat up. More pieces had been slaughtered and now pawns were nearly the only thing remaining for each side. The analysis that Krush was leading turned nightmarish. Krush divided up the work, with a separate part of the bulitian board readers working on each of several different possibilities. The organizational effort this took was taxing. Especially in checking that nobody was wasting effort duplicating another groups research. But Krush was able to hold it all together.

 

At move 47, the world team was the first to get a pawn to the far side. But the new piece that was traded in was captured quickly. Move 50 had both Kasprov and the world team getting another pawn to the far side of the board nearly simultaneously. The game was now in the rare situation of conducting a pawn race, with one powerful piece on each side, and nothing else. Situations like this had been studied before with the use of computers, but this exact scenario was forging territory to even the most dedicated number crunchers.

 

Gradually, and unfortunately, the bulitian board researchers discovered that there was no way to win this last and decisive pawn race. The mood changed, and the world team decided that a tie would be no loss of honor. At move 54, backed by the recommended plan of Krush, the world team voluntarily gave up one of its paws to throw the game into a situation where a win was less likely, but a draw more likely.

 

Then came move 58.

 

Krush had vanished. Gone. Poof. Her analysis and recommendation just never showed up. She just disappeared. The other annalists had long since given up at this point, so no solid recommendation came from them. Leaderless, the voting catastrophically went to a move that the bulitian boards had known weeks ahead of time to be a loosing move.

 

Krush appeared on the scene again the next day only to make a statement thanking everyone for the opportunity to participate in such a historical event. Things fell apart after that and the voting by the world team chose to quit just 4 moves later.

 

After all that work. Ironing over the fights on the bulitian boards like a skilled diplomat. Persuasion in her writing like a fine debater. Innovation and creativity never before seen. Nerves of steel. Tenacity. Ferocity. Leadership. Cunning. And right before the end a humble realism. All against the best chess player in the world. And after that she just vanished? What had happened? Had she fallen asleep or something?

 

Actually she had fallen asleep. The game had dragged on for so long that summer was over and middle school had started. He mommy had made her turn off the computer and go to bed because she had a math test the next morning.

 

You see, at the time of the game, Krush was 15 years old.

 

Remember her next time you see some self proclaimed “Old Guard” lecturing a newbbie and claiming that their way is the superior way because they are older and wiser and have more experience. Or if they use the slam “I have been doing BDSM since you were in diapers so I obviously know more than you.”

This entry was posted on Sunday, July 16th, 2006 at 7:07 am and is filed under Previous blog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.