Kasparov vs the World

Recently brought an old introductory book for chess for kids... and found a page about the author telling readers that they can always find people to play on the internet. Well since the infancy of the web I've seen people playing chess... it was text-only chess on a dumb terminal. How that has evolved these couple decades.

So I learned from the introductory book that way back in 1999, there was an interesting game... It was Gary Kasparov the world champion against the World. Kasparov is such awesome player and author. I have his EXCELLENT short book Chess Tactics that is such awesomely written work. So it is the internet that makes this possible... Kasparov makes a move... and the rest of world vote for the next move. Each side has 24 hours for each move. Details can be found on wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kasparov_versus_the_World.

This is a world class game... and it is hard to read chess move list without an actual chess set to follow along. But javascript is here for the rescue! This is such great tool here: http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1252350.

Whoa! The whole world is watching and still let Kasparov fork King and Rook? But after that it is an exciting match to watch. (Waita minute, I am able to predict correctly on some moves, am I *that* good? :) )

It is the internet that made this possible... to collaborate players around the world to play with the world champion... Have you seen elderly folks gather heads around chess games on the park? More heads can fit if you are on the internet (and you are allowed to talk while watching). Remarkably, the world champion still reigned. And it is the internet that make it possible for me to find the game and see it on a browser decades later.