WHAT I HAD LEARNED FROM GARY KASPAROV

Whenever I talk about brain power in my presentations or workshops, I often like to use the story of 'Gary Kasparov vs IBM Deep Blue' as an illustration.

Just imagine a man who can beat a computer in a game of chess?

I recall vividly - in fact, I still have the original newspaper clipping in my files - the fast-play, 2-game chess match, in the city of New York during October 1989, during which Gary Kasparov beat the precursor to the famous IBM Deep Blue, known as Deep Thought, a main frame chess-playing computer designed with brute-force computing capability.

There was a rematch after a seven years' gap, during which the original team of IBM computer scientists spent time beefing up their baby.

Somewhere in Philadelphia, during February 1996, in a 6-game match, Gary Kasparov again knocked IBM Deep Blue off the chess table. [He won the first game, drew the next two, & then won the 3 remaining games.]

After the game, the same team of IBM scientists beefed up the parallel processing hardware again - I read that it could process up to 200 million chess moves every second -, pumped in deep search & evaluation function capabilities, plus tuning up support from other Grandmasters. I also read that Gary Kasparov could examine only about 3 chess moves very second.

The machine was now affectionately called IBM Deeper Blue.

Another rematch was arranged, this time in downtown Manhattan, at the Equitable Centre during May 1997.

Practically, the whole world was watching this time, directly as well as indirectly.

Poor Gary Kasparov finally lost to IBM Deeper Blue. [He won the first game, but lost the next day, then came 3 gruelling draws, & in the final game, he lost! In fact, the first competition match he had ever lost!]

The chess as well as the computer world certainly had their own theories or assessments of the game - Man had lost to Machine.

As far as I am concerned, & I do not deny the fact that 'Man had lost to Machine', Gary Kasparov actually had three key factors not in his favour:

- the machine had impressive & unparalleled brute-force deep search/evaluation function capabilities & best of all, grandmaster tuning;

- the machine could not get tired at all;

- the machine could not get intimidated by Gary Kasparov, who was often notorious with his steely gaze at chess opponents;

Nevertheless, my point in this post is that man certainly has tremendous brain power. Each & every one of us probably can be like Gary Kasparov, provided we have the same kind of disciplined training & rigorous exposure he had.

Let me share with readers about some of his earlier accomplishments:

- first contact with chess when he was only 4 years old; [I had read from somewhere that young Russian chess players were often trained to play chess blind-folded with their masters - just imagine that!]

- at 12 or 13, he won the USSR's Junior Chess Championships;

- at 16, he finished first ahead of fourteen Grandmasters;

- at 17, he won the World Junior Chess Championship;

- at 22, he was the youngest World Chess Champion & subsequently held the world title for fourteen years;

He also has other notable accomplishments not directly related to chess.

Gary Kasparov has always been well-known for his uncanny intuitive chess play, lightning fast vision (this is pattern recognition!) of the chess board, & notorious for switching strategy mid game.

To me, he is a true genius, as he knows how to use his brain. As Doug Hall, author of 'Jump Start Your Brain', once said:

"The secret of geniuses' accomplishments does not lie in what they have, but in how they use their brains."

My parting comment in this post: Use it or lose it.