Kasparov versus the World was a game of chess played in 1999 over the Internet. It was a , in which a World Team of thousands decided each move for the black pieces by plurality vote, while Garry Kasparov conducted the white pieces by himself. More than 50,000 people from over 75 countries participated in the game.
The host and promoter of the match was the MSN Gaming Zone, with sponsorship from First USA bank.Harding, T. (2002). 64 Great Chess Games, Dublin: Chess Mail. . After 62 moves played over four months, Kasparov won the game. The game produced a mixture of deep tactical and strategic ideas; Kasparov wrote that he had never expended as much effort on any other game in his life. He later said, "It is the greatest game in the history of chess. The sheer number of ideas, the complexity, and the contribution it has made to chess make it the most important game ever played."
Background In the 1990s, Garry Kasparov was considered the reigning chess champion. Kasparov says he originally discussed the idea of a correspondence match in 1997 after his second match with Deep Blue in 1997; his friend Fred Friedel suggested arranging such a match and to work with the newspaper Der Spiegel. Nothing came of it, but Kasparov was intrigued. He was interested in expanding his presence on the Internet, and thought he could get more interest from investors if he could measure a potential audience and show interest. He looked to partner with an existing major Internet presence who would be able to handle an event of its size and came to Microsoft, which was happy to work with him. The event would be run on the MSN Gaming Zone website.
The main concern for Microsoft was the possibility that the game could turn into a farce if the World were to succumb to blunders that would turn the game into a rout early. The most prominent previous example of majority Internet voting had produced only mediocre competition; in 1996, Anatoly Karpov easily defeated the voters against him in such a match. As such, several innovative measures were taken. Analysts would explain the situation for more casual voters and help the World avoid catastrophic blunders. Kasparov, however, did not want the match to turn into a grudge match with a rival grandmaster (GM), figuring that this would be too close to his normal matches. It was decided that several teenage chess stars would be recruited to aid the World team and suggest moves. MSN recruited (in decreasing order of FIDE rating) 16-year-old GM Étienne Bacrot, 19-year-old Florin Felecan, 15-year-old Irina Krush (already the U.S. Women's Chess champion), and 14-year-old Elisabeth Paehtz. GM Daniel King would provide overall running commentary and act as a moderator; while not directly recommending moves to the World Team, he could act as a fifth advocate and clarify the state of the position. The pace of the game was also set to one move a day: 12 hours for Kasparov to move, 12 hours for the analysts to see the move and write recommendations, 18 hours for the World Team to vote and discuss, and 6 hours to validate voting. Also, MSN provided a bulletin board forum for the discussion of the World Team's moves. It was hoped that these advantages would raise the level of play and keep the game exciting.
The World Team also benefited from computer chess analysis. Interested voters such as "The Computer Chess Team" used distributed computing to analyze possible lines and make recommendations to the World. Kasparov himself consulted with Yury Dokhoian and Boris Alterman for advice at times.
The game was launched on June 21, 1999, with a promotional event at Bryant Park in New York for the kickoff that featured both Kasparov and World Team advisor Irina Krush.
The game
White: Garry Kasparov Black: The World Team Opening: Sicilian Defence, Canal–Sokolsky Attack (ECO B52)
1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. Bb5+
Kasparov played his first move 1.e4 on June 21, and the World Team voted by a 41% plurality to meet him on his home turf with the Sicilian Defence. Kasparov's third move was unusual for him. He typically plays the more ambitious 3.d4 in this position, which promptly leads to an . Kasparov commented that Bb5+ had something of a weak reputation until the 1990s, but he had been impressed with both Vasyl Ivanchuk and Alexei Shirov playing it against him for a win. Additionally, Vladimir Kramnik had played it twice against Boris Gelfand at the 1994 Candidates, winning once and drawing the other game. Kasparov was apologetic about the move, but excused himself in light of his expected upcoming championship match against Vishy Anand, where he expected the Najdorf Sicilian—a natural extension of 2...d6 3.d4—to be a potential battlefield.
3... Bd7 4. Bxd7+ Qxd7 5. c4
Some 30% of viewers wanted Black to play 4...Nxd7, but were outvoted by those who thought Black's queen was safe on the light squares with White's light-squared bishop off and preferred to the knight to c6. With c4, Kasparov solidified his hold on the d5-square by advancing the c-pawn before developing his , which joined the attack on d5 on the next move. The resulting pawn formation for White is sometimes called the Maróczy Bind, a way of Black's position. The World Team responded by contesting control of the d4-square.
5... Nc6 6. Nc3 Nf6 7. 0-0 g6
Now Black must try to castle on the and can set it up by developing the to either the e- or g-. Rather than move the e-pawn to e6 or e5 and have the dark-squared bishop blocked by the d-pawn, the World Team opted to fianchetto the remaining bishop, further contesting the dark central squares. Kasparov immediately broke up the with his , before the black bishop could come to bear.
8. d4 cxd4 9. Nxd4 Bg7 10. Nde2
The center was too hot for the white knight on d4, because the World Team was threatening a discovered attack by moving the black knight away from f6, unmasking the g7-bishop. Exchanging knights on c6 would have been silly for Kasparov, as it would have brought a black pawn to c6, giving the World Team greater control of d5; instead, a retreat was in order. All of Kasparov's moves up to this point were considered good according to opening theory of the time. If White had wanted to achieve the strategic aims of this opening line, i.e. cramping Black's position without allowing , then either a different move (10.Nc2) or a different move order was necessary. Slightly more popular today is 7.d4 and after 7...cxd4 8.Nxd4 Qe6 would now lose the queen. 7.d4 does allow two other queen sorties with 7... Qg4 or after 7...cxd4 8.Nxd4 Qg4.
10... Qe6
Black finally secured the opportunity to castle but instead opted to complicate the position. This move was a by the World Team, i.e. a move which had never before been played in a recorded game. Krush discovered and analyzed the move, and enlisted Paehtz to recommend it as well, to give it a better chance of winning the vote. Their combined advocacy, plus much discussion on the bulletin board, was enough to gain it 53% of the vote. After this move, MSN requested that the four official analysts not coordinate with each other, perhaps to ensure a greater variety of recommendations. The analysts worked in isolation from each other thereafter.
10...Qe6 has since been played frequently, though 10...0-0 also remains popular, according to ChessBase. The move was played against Kasparov again in a 2009 match against Gabriel Gaehwiler.
The tenth move was a turning point for the World Team, not only because it increased Krush's stature and energized the World Team, but because it blew the position on the board wide open. 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 with a favorable game. Kasparov was forced to enter the maelstrom with the next several moves.
11. Nd5 Qxe4 12. Nc7+ Kd7 13. Nxa8 Qxc4 14. Nb6+ axb6
After on both sides, Kasparov made a desperado move with his knight to cause the World Team to have doubled pawns. the game was still even, with a knight and two pawns balancing a rook. , the World Team had the disadvantages of doubled pawns and a centralized king, but the advantage of a lead in development and a central pawn mass. With no central pawns, Kasparov had no clear-cut way to expose the black king. In the judgment of many commentators, the World Team was at least equal, and it was perhaps Kasparov who was fighting uphill.
Kasparov rose to the challenge with an excellent move picked from alternatives which would have let the World Team take a strong initiative. For instance, it was tempting to harass the black queen and possibly fianchetto the with 15.b3, but this would have invited the World Team to switch wings and initiate a attack with 15...Qh4. Or, to blindly follow the rule "never move a piece twice in the opening when you can develop another piece" with 15.Be3 would have allowed the World Team to play 15...Nd5, bringing the black knight to the square it most fervently wished to occupy. Kasparov's actual move contested d5, somewhat blunted the effect of the black bishop on g7, and retained a compact, flexible position.
15. Nc3
On the fifteenth move the World Team hotly debated a number of promising alternatives, including 15...e6 (still contesting d5), 15...d5 (occupying d5 outright!), 15...Ne4 (trading off Kasparov's best-placed piece), 15...Rd8 (intending to artificially castle and mobilize the central pawns), 15...Ra8 (pressuring the and threatening a via a5), and 15...b5 (threatening to dislodge the white knight and pressure the queenside). The plethora of strong options available to the World Team was reflected in the analysts' recommending four different moves.
By this point in the game, several chess clubs had begun posting daily analysis to complement what was available on the official bulletin board and Web site of the game. The weightiest of these was the "Grandmaster Chess School" or GM School, a consortium of Russian grandmasters in St. Petersburg. For the World Team's 15th move, they recommended 15...b5, along with Paehtz. Some people expected the unofficial recommendation of the GM School to be influential, particularly when the official analysts could not agree, but 15...b5 came in a distant second with 15% of the vote. In first place was Jon Speelman's idea of 15...Ra8 with 48% of the vote.
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.
In short, Krush was facilitating two tasks simultaneously: not only discovering a good move, but building a consensus that it was indeed a good move. Given that she had become the center of all the cooperative effort of the World Team (as opposed to individual effort, however heroic), even players of much greater strength began sharing their ideas with her, so that she would incorporate them into her analysis. In particular, Alexander Khalifman of the GM School struck up a constructive correspondence with her.
16. a4!
This move was directed at the World's maneuverer 16...Ra5, which could now be met by 17.Nb5!, paralyzing Black's queenside. Simultaneously, Kasparov threatened a rook lift of his own via Ra3, which could disrupt Black's plans in several continuations. Finally, 16.a4 prevented the World Team's doubled b-pawns from advancing, thus making them future targets. The game remained very unclear and dynamic, but it suddenly appeared to be the World Team which was fighting to maintain the equilibrium.