<lostemperor> Lets say the answer he said is X. Now, its hard to believe that he always thinks X moves ahead no matter who the opponent is nor how prestigious the tournament is. Lets take 3 scenarios:

1) when he is playing a 2700 player like Anand in Linares. 2) when playing a 2300 rated player in Olympiad.
3) when he is playing a 1900 player in a simul exhibition.

You have to agree that X1 > X2 > X3

Not only that, X1(Anand) >= X1(Adams)

There's just so much of variance to this claim of what X could be. It also cannot be ruled out that his answer of what X is, might have been to fend off a pestering journalist, since we know that this question irritates Kasparov a lot. :)

Having said all that, my guess for X is 12.

However in a tournament in the 90s, Kasparov said how deep he thinks. Probably he forgot that it irritates him to do so. It was after a game he won. He didn't mention the positions. It must be of course a 'normal' critical position which usually occurs 3 or 4 times during a game. I'm sure he doesn't think in the opening and in easy replies.

Kasparov was working intensively with the top computers, in preparation for his match with IBM supercomputer. Those computers can all calculate at certain plies (one move for one colour). Can Kasparov think as deep as those processors, deeper perhaps or does he rely more on his intuition.

I thought that calculating prowess with computers is measured by ply depth; but with humans; you use "chunks" stored in the brain.

like software, GMs use a similar min-max tree traversal; but GMs do evaluations by retriving chunks from their brain. this allows them to discard nearly all tree branches.

I'll answer that when I become a top chess player.

CORUS standings:
1. S. Karjakin 3½
2. L. Aronian
2. Kamsky
2. Dominguez
2. Smeets 3
6. M. Carlsen
6. van Wely
6. Radjabov
6. Movsesian 2½
10. D. Stellwagen
10. Ivanchuk
10. Adams
10. Wang 2
14. A. Morozevich

PREDICTIONS standings after 5 rounds:

Maximum score: 101

Score,UserID
41,Ragh
39,SwitchingQuylthulg
39,YouRang
37,DCP23
35,suenteus po 147
33,Appaz
33,chancho
33,Chnebelgrind
33,NakoSonorense
32,cu8sfan
31,armenoid
31,CHESSBOOKIE
31,lostemperor
29,yalie
27,capybara
27,chessmoron
27,kellmano
27,OhioChessFan
27,rogge
25,iron maiden
25,nimh
25,TheGladiatres
24,amadeus
23,Aurora
23,percyblakeney
23,positionalgenius
22,ELO
22,imag
21,Robin01

But this is an interesting question also how deep do each of us think in a critiacl position. I know I usually don't count it. Once I did. I think it was 9 or 10 plies of 40 minutes of thought orso. This must be a record since I don't usually think that deep!

But now that you mentioned it Nako, it so happens that I made a comment on the Corus A page on Karjakin vs Stellwagen, 2009 14. Bc5! I saw a forced sequence pretty quickly but likely flawed 14.. Bxb2 15 Kxb2 Nc4+ 16 Bxc4 bxc4 17 Bd6 Qb7 18 Bxb8 Qxb8 and white knight is pinned. That is 9 plies of flawed thinking I did in 30 seconds orso:) You can see that the last four plies was 'forced' too what make things easier to see.

They start exploring the brain. It seems that recognising chess positions is like face recognition. They scanned Susan's brain and found the back part, what is also use for face recognition is active also in her recognising chess positions. We recognise faces in a split second. This way GMs recognise chess positions also.

PREDICTIONS STANDINGS after 6 rounds:
Maximum score: 101

<suenteus po 147> and <SwitchingQuylthulg> leading. <lostemperor> and <Ragh> on medal positions. Looking at the course of the tournament so far and 7 rounds to go there is not much to say yet!:)

Round 6 contradicts this statement :)

SQUARE RANKER
Score evaluation method: Least Squares of rank deviation Maximum score: 819

Movsesian and Morozevich won(!) Ivanchuk and Smeets lost(!)

Corus standings
1. S. Karjakin
1. Movsesian 4½
3. L. Aronian
3. Dominguez
3. Radjabov 4
6. M. Carlsen
6. van Wely
6. Kamsky
6. Adams
6. Smeets 3½
11. D. Stellwagen 3
12. V. Ivanchuk
12. Morozevich
12. Wang 2½

PREDICTION STANDINGS "halfway":