

In 1999, Kasparov played chess against 50000 people. - shadytrees
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kasparov_versus_The_World
Much more information in Further Reading:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kasparov_versus_The_World#Further_reading
======
jderick
To clarify the title, all 50000 people were working as a team in a single game
of chess.

I originally thought this would be a pointless exercise, sort of like 50000
monkeys banging away at typewriters. It appears that was not the case. I found
this passage about how one of the players effectively lead the team quite
fascinating:

"15...Ra8

The results of the vote were a reflection of the increasing coordination of
the World Team. Krush was maintaining an analysis tree, and continually
updating with all the suggestions and refutations from the bulletin board. Not
only did the analysis tree allow the World Team to work with less duplication
of effort, it served as a standing, detailed argument for the correctness of
the recommended move."

It makes sense that some kind of unified document to keep track of everything
would help. It is fascinating to me how much like the data structure you would
probably see inside a computer chess program this document resembled.

Next, in the commentary for move 16:

"This sparked loud grumbling on the bulletin board that Krush had "taken over
the game". Those who complained were not overstating Krush's influence; her
recommendations were selected every single move from the 10th to the 50th."

This was really surprising to me, how much influence her recommendations had
after that point. I wonder how much of it was: first mover advantage vs form
of coordination vs having the best ideas.

~~~
trickjarrett
One thing which it fails to state is that this was a major event for casual /
hobbyist chess players. I don't have any statistics but every friend of mine
who played chess was taking part in this.

So I suspect that the majority of those who voted moves regularly was a
majority of people who understood the game and could follow the logic.

I don't think it can be overstated the sort of impact recommended moves had.
This was largely a game between each GM and Kasparov with people voting on who
to follow. As I said in another comment, had there been no recommendations,
the game would have probably been much shorter and much more juvenile in
complexity.

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patio11
Sadly, I think that article needs to be rewritten to conform to Wiki standards
of studied, patient mediocrity in writing. :(

>> The black queen forked Kasparov's central pawns; he could not save them
both. Counterattacking with 11.Qb3 would have been met by 11...0-0 12.Qxb7
Rfc8, and the World Team would have won back a central pawn with a favorable
game. Kasparov was forced to enter the maelstrom with the next several moves.
>>

Great story but it has POV and citation issues. Here:

>> The black queen forked Kasparov's central pawns. Chess experts have
noted[123] that, hypothetically assuming Kasparov had played 11.Qb3, that
11...0-0 12.Qxb7 Rfc8 was a possible outcome. Some experts[124] consider this
gain of a pawn to give strategic advantage to the World Team, others[125]
disagree. >>

~~~
delano
Why not make the change on Wikipedia?

~~~
patio11
I used to be an English teacher so forgive me for two things:

1) I think that my suggested edit, and the other few dozen similar ones I
could make, _do not improve the article_ even if they are more in line with
the Wikipedian NPOV and NOR policies.

2) The words "sadly" and "mediocrity" are cues that would have suggested #1
already.

~~~
delano
I wasn't suggesting you should have. I just wondered what your reasoning was.
Thanks for explaining.

------
brentr
I remember this game fondly. Sadly, the game has a serious flaw. I don't
remember the exact move, but Irina Krush was late on posting her move, the
best one for the position, and as a result, it did not get nearly as many
votes as it should have. Had the move been played, the world would have had a
much better position.

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Herring
reposting a comment I saw elsewhere, google it for more

\--

Let me, as a chess player, say that I was much less surprised by the
resistance the World put up against Kasparov:

A) Kasparov is indeed considered the greatest player by most and the reason
for his strength when playing ‘over the board’ (OTB, as it is termed) was
threefold: 1) he prepared more and better than anyone else 2) his calculating
powers OTB were quite magnificent and 3) his understanding of dynamic chess
was ahead of his time. Now when using the format of the Kasparov vs the World
game these advantages largely (not completely) disappear: 1) everyone can
consult books (in particular about openings), 2) everyone can move the pieces
around on the board instead of inside their heads 3) the game was not a messy
game Kasparov used to excel in but quickly went into a middle game with
endgame features.

B) Kasparov may be “much better” than other GMs and than Krush in particular,
but this difference in strength should be qualified. The difference between me
and most tournament players in the US player is much larger than that between
Kasparov and Krush! The median rating of US chess players [those who play
tournaments and actually do have an official rating] is somewhere around
1000-1100, mine is more than 1100 points higher. Kasparov is “only” about
300-400 points above Krush (and like 150 points above Khalifman).

C) There is a good comparison with correspondence chess here: this is where
people play by email, for instance, (it used to be by snail mail). I just
started playing this myself and the tempo in most games is about 1 move per
day. Now I play several people whose OTB ratings are way below mine, indeed a
1000 points below mine. But I don’t have an easy time beating those players in
correspondence chess. A difference of 1000 points implies I can beat them,
when playing OTB, literally blindfolded (just seeing the board in my head).
But in correspondence chess it’s much much harder. They can use opening books
and look up how grandmasters have played in the position we happen to have on
the board.

~~~
sireat
This doesn't change the argument, but the median rating of 1100 is misleading
since most of under 1100 are children who participate in various Chess in
Schools programs and who never go onto play rated chess as adults. Among
active playing adults the median must be closer to 1400 if not more.

However this Kasparov vs. The World game does show the case where the "tragedy
of commons" comes into play. 50,000 players playing without "guidance" from
the top would quickly lose to Kasparov.

One last point, 400 point rating difference is actually considered quite
significant, top player then is supposed to get a 99:1 score in 100 games.
When there is 200 point difference, advantage slips to 75:25.

~~~
dgordon
400 points is actually more like a 90:10 advantage, but that's a minor point.

~~~
sireat
You are correct! It is the 800 point difference which comes out to roughly
99:1. Finally, took the time to calculate correctly from:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elo_rating_system>

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shadytrees
You can relive the game here:
<http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1252350>

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dgordon
I remember participating in that game -- I was in New York when Kasparov
opened the game by playing 1. e4, I voted on a lot of the moves, posted my
analysis (1350 USCF analysis, but still) to the forum there, and was greatly
disappointed when the World realized it had blown a drawn endgame. This brings
back the memories, and it was indeed a great game of chess.

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lazyant
A Spanish tv channel did something similar (viewers voting on a few options
against Kasparov) and on that occasion 'Spain' won. Edit: I remembered it
wrong; I looked it up and it was 1991 with a win for Kasparov and a tie (I
guess the tie felt like a victory for the viewers).

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time_management
One summer, I interned at a think-tank where there were a lot of Go players.
One of them invited a Go master (7+ dan) to play 15 separate games against 15
people. He never delayed: he would take his turns in each of the games during
the amount of time that his opponents would use to take one turn. He won all
of the games, but none by anything that would seem like a blowout margin.

After he left, people began discussing and comparing scores. He had beaten
every single one of them by exactly 13 points.

~~~
tdavis
That's incredible. Go has always fascinated me on principle, though I have yet
to find the time to learn the game. Thanks for this.

~~~
celoyd
If you have 5 minutes, you can learn the rules from
<http://homepages.cwi.nl/~tromp/go.html> \-- a much neater explanation than
most. It takes a little practice to get good, of course. Just a few years of
full-time playing.

The best general resource online is <http://senseis.xmp.net/> .

