I grant you, the game you posted is delightful--I never would've guessed machines had anything to do with it. But how am I supposed to drum up any rooting interest?

<parisattack> Maybe we can be coelocanths, and still be around after a lot of newfangled life forms are long-since fossilized.

<RandomVisitor> Although I think of you as one of the really big "computer guys" on this site, I can't hold it against you.

In one of the first CG consultation games a few years ago, in which we were allowed to let computers pick our moves, I suggested a move that ran counter to the majority computer analysis--and you were open-minded enough to support it, even though the machines said no. I think we wound up being a minority of two.

I think we should look to chess to help us develop skills for life & understanding the world, but not for chess itself.

People use computers to learn chess. They often use computers to play chess. After games with other people or to examine historical games they use computers to analyze chess. Whether we like it or not, this is a growing trend.

At the same time, chess is not growing in popularity. The game itself, as a game, is slowly moving towards becoming one of the great lost arts.

However, if we can adhere to the study of chess & transpose it's principles to life, to help us understand our many relationships, understand politics, understand businesses, understand societies, then just as we use tools to understand chess we can use chess as a tool to understand life.

click for larger view

Maybe this position shows what I think is some kind of strategic principle (or whatever): some flank attacks, rather than being "vertical" (attack through the files), are kind of "triangular" clashing on the h1-a8 long diagonal, pushing WQ's flank agaist BK's flank.

For persective, this was Sept 15, 1959. Exactly 6 months before the WCC match between challenger Tal and reigning champ, the mighty Botvinnik, whom he disposed by a score of 12.5 - 8.5 [the same result as Spassky-Fischer 3 years later]. Bobby was 15 years old. He lost 11 games at Bled, 4 of which was to Tal. He left this event smarting from these losses, and no doubt went home to his think tank, determined to find the path to victory over Tal. He never lost to him again. They played 7 games after this one, 3 draws and 4 wins for Bobby.

All this to say.. In 1959-1960 Tal was at the peak of his powers, and extremely difficult to predict OTB. Bobby was an aspiring new future champion who needed a good butt whooping to get the eye of the tiger fired up, and force him to higher level prep.

This is a normal pattern we have seen time and again, as with..

Steinitz [56] Lasker [25],
Lasker [53] Capablanca [33],
Botvinnik [53] Tal [23]
Spassky [35] Fischer [29]
Anand [44] Carlsen [23], and others.

The older seasoned race horse is out performed by the younger, stronger Philly with drive and hunger.