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While Neo slugs it out with Agent Smith on the silver screen, chess champ Garry Kasparov is about to face off against a different -- but no less formidable -- computer adversary in New York this week.
In what's becoming an annual tradition, Kasparov will take on the world's best chess-playing computer program, ChessBase's Fritz, for a $200,000 purse.
The four-game match, running from Nov. 11 to 18 at New York's Athletic Club, is once again billed as "Man versus Machine," but with an added twist.
The match is the "first official world chess championship in total virtual reality," proclaims organizer X3D in the best carnival-barker tradition. "A chess spectacle like none ever seen before."
Playing a special version of Fritz, which has been given a 3-D interface, Kasparov will sit in front of a monitor wearing a pair of 3-D glasses. The board will appear to float in front of Kasparov's face. Keeping it virtual, Kasparov will use voice commands to stop the clock and move his pieces.
Despite the 3-D gimmick, the tournament is a serious test of the state of computer chess, said Mig Greengard, a chess writer and one of the tournament's commentators.
"It's the world's best player against the latest, greatest iteration of the beast," said Greengard.
Tune In
Watch the live matches
between Kasparov and Fritz starting Tuesday, Nov. 11.
(Requires Internet Explorer 5 with the Flash 6 plugin) Greengard said Fritz is synonymous with computer chess; it's the standard-bearer used by all the world's top players.
While there's a version of Fritz for standard PCs, Kasparov will face the software running on a four-processor Xeon server, which will be capable of assessing about 3 million moves a second.
Vladimir Kramnik -- Kasparov's current nemesis -- played an earlier version of the program in 2002 in Bahrain (the "Brains in Bahrain") and drew. In similar fashion, Kasparov drew against Deep Junior, a competing program, in New York earlier this year.
"The software keeps getting stronger and the hardware keeps getting faster," said Greengard. "This thing is really strong. It's stronger than the one (Deep Junior) he played a year ago.... Put it this way, they don't get any weaker."
In the history of chess, this is the era of computer chess, Greengard said. Instead of Fischer and Spassky we have Kasparov and the PC.
"(Kasparov) likes the grandeur," Greengard said. "He takes it very seriously. (Playing computers) is the definition of his era. It's what distinguishes the Kasparov era of chess. He's not in this for the paycheck. He really takes the 'defender-of-humanity' thing seriously."
http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,61097,00.html
In what's becoming an annual tradition, Kasparov will take on the world's best chess-playing computer program, ChessBase's Fritz, for a $200,000 purse.
The four-game match, running from Nov. 11 to 18 at New York's Athletic Club, is once again billed as "Man versus Machine," but with an added twist.
The match is the "first official world chess championship in total virtual reality," proclaims organizer X3D in the best carnival-barker tradition. "A chess spectacle like none ever seen before."
Playing a special version of Fritz, which has been given a 3-D interface, Kasparov will sit in front of a monitor wearing a pair of 3-D glasses. The board will appear to float in front of Kasparov's face. Keeping it virtual, Kasparov will use voice commands to stop the clock and move his pieces.
Despite the 3-D gimmick, the tournament is a serious test of the state of computer chess, said Mig Greengard, a chess writer and one of the tournament's commentators.
"It's the world's best player against the latest, greatest iteration of the beast," said Greengard.
Tune In
Watch the live matches
between Kasparov and Fritz starting Tuesday, Nov. 11.
(Requires Internet Explorer 5 with the Flash 6 plugin) Greengard said Fritz is synonymous with computer chess; it's the standard-bearer used by all the world's top players.
While there's a version of Fritz for standard PCs, Kasparov will face the software running on a four-processor Xeon server, which will be capable of assessing about 3 million moves a second.
Vladimir Kramnik -- Kasparov's current nemesis -- played an earlier version of the program in 2002 in Bahrain (the "Brains in Bahrain") and drew. In similar fashion, Kasparov drew against Deep Junior, a competing program, in New York earlier this year.
"The software keeps getting stronger and the hardware keeps getting faster," said Greengard. "This thing is really strong. It's stronger than the one (Deep Junior) he played a year ago.... Put it this way, they don't get any weaker."
In the history of chess, this is the era of computer chess, Greengard said. Instead of Fischer and Spassky we have Kasparov and the PC.
"(Kasparov) likes the grandeur," Greengard said. "He takes it very seriously. (Playing computers) is the definition of his era. It's what distinguishes the Kasparov era of chess. He's not in this for the paycheck. He really takes the 'defender-of-humanity' thing seriously."
http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,61097,00.html
