Recently i was talking to a friend and sharing the stories of my year in the high school chess club as a junior in 1988 and how that lead to me finding chess life( some kids played USCF at my district chess tournament and were rated , we came in third), as some kids had ratings and i figured there ought to be a magazine about chess as they had magazines on everything. So joined USCF and went to 4 or 5 events summer of 88. But what i remembered was after Kasparov lost the Deep Blue match in May 1997 i wrote Chess Life a letter titled "i was right" about how i won my 20 dollar bet on the match, and it was actually published in the issue that had letters about the Deep Blue match a few months later. I don't think I told anyone at the time it was published. I might have been a bit embarrassed reading it maybe 2 or 3 months after i wrote it and it looked like a little bit of a rant vs the more thoughtful other letters they published Might have been worried they hadn't taken me seriously or i didn't present myself seriously.
I've ordered the July-dec 1997 back issues of Chess Life to see if i can find my letter. And if i can i'd love to scan it and share it. This would be about 18 months before i started my Pulsar Chess Engine and a year before I got internet and a chance to play online chess.
I was not online during the match but i followed closely as best i could. KOMO AM 1000 was including the days match result in their top of the hour news. I remember one day I did not hear anything. I actually called the radio station but the guy said hmm i remember were covering it but he looked and said nothing so far has come over the wire today. But it turned out the game just ran late and a couple of hours later they had the result on the radio . I did bet on the match and i was heavily influenced by a Newsweek magazine article that came out a few weeks before the match. It talked about how Joel Benjamin was training it to play more natural and how the 97 version was so much better than the 96 version that lost. So my decision to bet on the match was informed. If i can find the letter, be curious to read it and share it. One thing though I remember they garbled my name. Looked like a typo. Maybe since my name is Michael Adams they just decided i was not signing that. Adams was an active player that year. But i was a USCF member that year so they knew they had a Michael Adams in USCF and i'd been on the phone with sales once or twice and they always commented on my name. But when i saw my name garbled i might have also thought just as well as i was a bit embarrassed over the letter at the time. Oh well i was 26.
adams161 wrote: ↑Sat Nov 30, 2019 10:33 pm
Recently i was talking to a friend and sharing the stories of my year in the high school chess club as a junior in 1988 and how that lead to me finding chess life( some kids played USCF at my district chess tournament and were rated , we came in third), as some kids had ratings and i figured there ought to be a magazine about chess as they had magazines on everything. So joined USCF and went to 4 or 5 events summer of 88. But what i remembered was after Kasparov lost the Deep Blue match in May 1997 i wrote Chess Life a letter titled "i was right" about how i won my 20 dollar bet on the match, and it was actually published in the issue that had letters about the Deep Blue match a few months later. I don't think I told anyone at the time it was published. I might have been a bit embarrassed reading it maybe 2 or 3 months after i wrote it and it looked like a little bit of a rant vs the more thoughtful other letters they published Might have been worried they hadn't taken me seriously or i didn't present myself seriously.
I've ordered the July-dec 1997 back issues of Chess Life to see if i can find my letter. And if i can i'd love to scan it and share it. This would be about 18 months before i started my Pulsar Chess Engine and a year before I got internet and a chance to play online chess.
I was not online during the match but i followed closely as best i could. KOMO AM 1000 was including the days match result in their top of the hour news. I remember one day I did not hear anything. I actually called the radio station but the guy said hmm i remember were covering it but he looked and said nothing so far has come over the wire today. But it turned out the game just ran late and a couple of hours later they had the result on the radio . I did bet on the match and i was heavily influenced by a Newsweek magazine article that came out a few weeks before the match. It talked about how Joel Benjamin was training it to play more natural and how the 97 version was so much better than the 96 version that lost. So my decision to bet on the match was informed. If i can find the letter, be curious to read it and share it. One thing though I remember they garbled my name. Looked like a typo. Maybe since my name is Michael Adams they just decided i was not signing that. Adams was an active player that year. But i was a USCF member that year so they knew they had a Michael Adams in USCF and i'd been on the phone with sales once or twice and they always commented on my name. But when i saw my name garbled i might have also thought just as well as i was a bit embarrassed over the letter at the time. Oh well i was 26.
Mike
On one level, the DB win was the worst thing that ever happen to computer chess. DB would not even be close to today's top engines with today' hardware. But at the time , there was nothing else close to it. Why did IBM have to take the machine apart? I never understood that, DB should have gone right to the Smithsonian Institute. Huge mistake in my mind. I was playing some crazyhouse chess on Pulsar the other day. Love that app.
adams161 wrote: ↑Sat Nov 30, 2019 10:33 pm
I've ordered the July-dec 1997 back issues of Chess Life to see if i can find my letter. And if i can i'd love to scan it and share it.
i was commenting to the same friend that started my reminisces on Deep Blue that that period late 90s was the dividing point in computer chess. In summer of 1988 i had a Fidelity Excellence chess board computer touted as 2000 USCF. One guy at an event i went to had the same thing. He was a 1700. said he played level 8, about a minute a move(i was just level one back then). But I had met Peter Yu at same venue, a young master 2 years older than me and that year captain of the UC Berkley Chess Club and his comment was he didn't bother to play computers. They were not good enough. He was a USCF master a bit over 2200 then. The general consensus by strong players in the 80s and 90s was more the computers are not good enough, but that started to change by the late 90s and Deep Blue was part of that turning point. Now in the 20 years since the general consensus is the opposite. It's that no human can beat a computer anymore.
Glad to hear Pulsar is getting some use. I kind of have a monopoly now on iPhone Android Crazyhouse apps. Well at least I provide levels so a range of players can use it
adams161 wrote: ↑Sat Nov 30, 2019 10:33 pm
I've ordered the July-dec 1997 back issues of Chess Life to see if i can find my letter. And if i can i'd love to scan it and share it.
I was actually surprised at what i wrote. I didn't remember i had written exactly that. But it was signed Mike Ronald Udame, i'm Mike Ronald Adams so they did garble my last name. And it was Seattle Washington where i lived then and for about 18 years and where i wrote pulsar. And i did say i was right and i did win my bet which was actually 10 dollar not 20.
I can't believe i told Kasparov to give up chess in a published letter to Chess Life. But this was my pre internet years and this was my first serious encounter with Kasparov as a person. And i took this 10 dollar bet as a serious bet. And my initial reaction is what is he some kind of baby.
Screen clipping of my letter published in the July 1997 issue of Chess Life right after the match is here. I was 26 when I wrote it. http://www.lanternchess.com/i-was-right.png
i thought it was some weird typo at the time like they can never get it right from letter to print. But i think they scrambled my name to not let it appear Michael Adams of England was saying that. Mike Ronald Seattle Washington match in the letter in chess life per my signing but Udame was what they gave me for a last name changing my first and last letter. Udame matches *dam* and i'm Adams. http://www.lanternchess.com/i-was-right.png
MikeB wrote: ↑Sat Nov 30, 2019 10:51 pm
Why did IBM have to take the machine apart?
Because it was an overpowered potato. Imagine if the myth was over after people discovered it was badly coded and only performed well because of the hardware.
By my estimation Fruit 2.1 with 2005 hardware was enough to outmatch Deep Blue.
MikeB wrote: ↑Sat Nov 30, 2019 10:51 pm
Why did IBM have to take the machine apart?
Because it was an overpowered potato. Imagine if the myth was over after people discovered it was badly coded and only performed well because of the hardware.
By my estimation Fruit 2.1 with 2005 hardware was enough to outmatch Deep Blue.
IBM's stock went up like 15%. They made billions. Bury deep blue and bank on what you got. Garry never quite realized they only wanted to game him. Maybe the Botvinnik ethic to support computer chess in Russian Chess players.
MikeB wrote: ↑Sat Nov 30, 2019 10:51 pm
On one level, the DB win was the worst thing that ever happen to computer chess. DB would not even be close to today's top engines with today' hardware. But at the time , there was nothing else close to it. Why did IBM have to take the machine apart? I never understood that, DB should have gone right to the Smithsonian Institute. Huge mistake in my mind. I was playing some crazyhouse chess on Pulsar the other day. Love that app.
'Twas also a shame they didn't play a tie-breaker match, something Kasparov, of course, wanted. I think he would have won and that he basically lost the second match for psychological reasons (initially under-estimating DB based on the first match then getting worked up over perceived slights and a sudden lack of confidence).
Might have been worried they hadn't taken me seriously or i didn't present myself seriously. 
