And as a child I did also come across something spectacular-the game of chess. At 9 I learnt how to play the game. It was however, not until when I was 17(2yrs ago) that I realized the divinity of this game.I got knocked out from the very first round from the college and that was because we did not have enough time to complete the game. The game, in fact was a draw but having already battled out for 3 hrs with my opponent in an intense game, he was appointed the winner simply because he had a slight advantage at that juncture of the game. Mortified as I was, by the tournament organizers, I screamed for vengeance. And thank God for that I started getting obsessed with this game. Until then I was only a casual player. But now I'd caught the rhythm, I started surfing the world of chess, reading articles, watching videos and playing online. I got to know about chess engines one of which I installed (Fritz 10, I still use it). I strove to understand the notations, analysis and most importantly create an imaginary 8*8 "chess board" in my mind. And to this day, having been hallucinated by the pieces and the board my rating is that of a professional.
But the driving force was in fact, not the humiliation but one of those questions mentioned above. In chess there are only 64 squares to battle out on. Any yet the possibilities are infinite. The aim is to collage the set of moves that make a "combination". A lot of chess connoisseurs often make remarks about finding the "best move" in a position. If that were so, chess would be rather mundane. As I said, chess is all about plans, so the more the planners, the more the plans. And a plan could be "tactical" or "strategic", fleeting or resistant. In that sense every "mind" makes a specific plan. Throughout the game of chess, two minds can never end up creating the same set of plans and therefore, every mind that plays chess plays it differently which adds up to the fact that chess can be played in as many ways as the number of minds that play it. So in lieu of "the best move" a better expression would be "the best plan". As Vishwanathan Anand, the current world champion has remarked "There is no best move in chess, it always depends on who your opponent is".
There are 3 stages in the game of chess-the opening, the middlegame and the endgame. Opening is mostly about the book lines, i.e. the theories that have evolved for centuries on which set of pieces to move and where in the first anticipated specific number moves of the match. The opening theories at this point of time have culminated to make the opening phase quite boring and stodgy especially in grandmaster games particularly because it has become more of a memory work than real calculations.
The middle part swings the game into an interesting scenario where the players (or chess engines) struggle to reach the endgame with a slight advantage or to checkmate each other outright (which generally is not the case in GM games). The position is mostly tactical and the concept of "the best move" is valid here. This is the stage where the calculating capacity of the strongest chess engines of this era have slightly overtaken those of humans. Its mostly because humans are prone to making mistakes and even the slightest of mistakes could sway the game towards the opponent. But with chess engines of these days, expecting mistakes is a mistake itself. As GM Garry Kasparov says "Against the computer, once you make the mistake you're out of business but so is not the case with humans".
And the endgame-the most interesting part ! Here the possibilities are limited, yet the strategies could be so cunning that humans can take over chess engines. Bobby Fischer (my all time favorite player) beats Mark Taimanov, the Russian giant in 1972 at the candidates match before facing the then world champion Boris Spassky. In one of his brilliancies the world got to witness the chess mind that would even surpass the calculating abilities of chess engines yet of today. Fischer, in fact is the greatest genius to descend from chess heavens, as another GM Tal, described him. The computers say that the position was somewhat equal, yet Fischer's ingenius mind produced a winning combination with a bishop sacrifice exploiting the technique called "zugzwang" that is often prominent in endgames. It is the disadvantage of having to "make a move" in a position when you simply want to "pass up". Yet it is your turn and you HAVE to make a move and any move you make leads you to a losing position. Check this game out between Fischer and Mark Taimanov
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eAW16O4fLIQ
