Chess Intelligence

[Pierre Tavlitzki]

The visit to Europe of the young American prodigy Paul Morphy in 1858 marks the beginning of a phenomenal public interest in international chess viewed as a symbol of intelligence. Morphy is a brilliant and instinctive player.

Later generations relied upon the study and modeling of millions of games played by the grand masters. After the Second World War, the Soviet schools lead up to perfection this discipline of logics and combinations close to mathematics.

The library of Bobby Fischer is sold by Bonhams in New York on June 10, as a single lot estimated $ 50K. There are 300 volumes and 400 magazines entirely devoted to chess, but also several notebooks recording the study by Fischer of games played by Boris Spassky before their 1972 match.

Fischer won that match of the century, which was his swansong of world champion. The passionate press viewed it as a victory of the free world. These documents will enable a specialist to understand the logic that led Fischer to victory.

In the media, the world championship of chess is unnoticed since the machine has conquered man in 1997. Manufactured by IBM, it was called Deep Blue. The man, the then world champion, is still considered today as having been the greatest chess player of all time: Garry Kasparov. This event brought us in the post-human era of robots.

[Pierre Tavlitzki]

A few years ago, fans of chess would have fought for the chance to enter the thinking of one of the best players of all time. Deep Blue has been there, and the game returned in a sad anonymity.

The lot was sold, but not exceeding one cent the lower estimate: $ 50 K before fees. Perhaps there was that a single buyer. He certainly made an excellent bargain.