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The Rediff Interview / Vishwanathan Anand

'Computers don’t win games because they are superior to humans. This is a myth. They win games because of psychology'

In the second part of his conversation with Shobha Warrier, Vishwanathan Anand discusses, among other things, the role of computers in contemporary chess.

The First Part.

Recently, in one of your interviews, you said that you had to improve a lot to beat Kasparov. Which are the areas that you feel you have to improve?

I think I have to improve a lot. Period. Not to beat Kasparov alone but beat anyone. Generally I am happy with my game but it is time now for me to look back. I think it can happen after years of very good results. If I look at my own games, it is clear that I was not playing perfect chess. I don’t think anybody plays perfect chess! I didn’t play perfect chess in '97 and '98. I just took chances and I won a lot of games and had very good results.

If I look at the games, I find that I made a lot of mistakes, like everybody else. I think Kasparov made a lot of mistakes in '99. You don’t understand chess if you think people can play perfect chess. It doesn't work that way.You will always find new things. So I made that comment in that sense.

A lot of people, after reading the interview thought, felt the difference between him and me has grown! I don’t dispute that I am the one who has to prove. His results over the last fifteen years are far more impressive than mine. I had a couple of very good years but he has been the world champion. But I don’t think the difference has grown or anything like that. I was talking in general about having to improve as a player.

To beat the Number one player ...

Yes. Anyway, I have to improve not just to beat him but anyone.

Do players become complacent after sometime, especially if you are winning more and losing less?

This can happen. You would say it is complacence. But it implies somehow that you become careless. What happens is that, when you are playing, you tend to look at the problems that you had before. And if you don’t have many problems for quite sometime, then you get stuck at where you are. In that sense, a few setbacks from time to time are very good because it motivates you to perform better.

I wouldn’t say, I was really complacent. I think what happens is your self-confidence - something which is very good, as without self-confidence you can do nothing in chess - grows, grows and grows. But at some point, other people start getting used to you and your style. So, after sometime, you have to start developing new ideas and new trends.

So you also must be changing your style quite often

Yes. You are always looking at all your old analysis, games and try to find out new ideas and new positions. Without that, it is not possible to play chess because things get worked out. If you don’t find new ideas, people can just stop you in your lane.

Since mental toughness is very important in chess, do players try to intimidate the player on the other side of the board psychologically?

Generally, no. Maybe, it is a bad habit. It was very popular in the Soviet days. Now nobody does it anymore. The young Russian players don’t bother about doing this. Like I said, if you have a good relationship, you don’t try to do such things. You just try to play good moves and yes, intimidate the other guy by playing good chess. I wouldn’t say, it is a big problem anymore.

Certainly there are a few people like Kasparov who is well-known for his faces and things like that. Again, I wouldn’t take it too much out of context. In general, it is not a major problem. I think, the best way to intimidate someone is play good moves!

While playing, do you try to suppress your real feelings? After a good move, do you show your satisfaction? What do you do if you feel very angry or disappointed inside after a bad move?

It varies from person to person. It varies from moment to moment too. Sometimes, you are so happy that you can’t control it. Other times, you keep a poker face! You make a really lousy move and sometimes, you are able to hide that very well and pretend that everything is very normal, hoping that the other guy won’t notice it. Sometimes, you make such a bad move that you can’t help hitting your head. It varies. In general, the basis of chess as a sport is, you try not to let your opponent see what’s inside your mind. And, I have a poker face most of the time. At least that is what other people tell me.

Generally Indians are supposed to be very emotional. Do you consciously suppress your feelings and remain poker faced?

You can be emotional and at the same time have a poker face! My emotions go up and down during a game but there are other people who really don’t care. Of course, I feel all the tension inside. But I try to remain poker faced. Your mother can always spot the emotions, you know. She just looks at your face and tells you, this is the same face you had when you were four years old and you did something wrong. They know immediately.

You said the other day that when you first started playing chess there was no software available at all. On the other hand, today’s young players can have access to so many software programs to improve their game. How much has chess as a game changed or benefited due to Internet and the software revolution?

It’s made everything much faster. The information cycle goes much faster. For example, if I play a good idea in one tournament and by that evening, that is, within five minutes, everyone in the world has it. All the other top players know about it immediately. Earlier, you had to wait one month till a booklet with all the games played in certain important tournaments was mailed to your house. Now, it takes just five minutes.

Also, you have to work much harder; so does everyone else. A lot of things have become easier. Technology won’t make your life more difficult or easy, it just changes the rules. It has closed some areas of the game too; the areas of the game that you can work on the computer. A lot of things are more difficult to do. You can’t catch people and trap anymore as they check everything, the probability of error, on the computer.

On the other hand, it has opened up new doors. There are many positions which were terribly complicated. Humans can generally decide these things in five minutes but we cannot be hundred percent sure unless you check everything mathematically. There are positions which you used to leave to a team of four people to double check for two weeks but now you leave a computer running overnight and by morning, you are almost sure that it’s been checked. You still have to test one or two things because the computer can evaluate things badly. In general, everything has become much faster. In a nutshell, it has been very good for the sport.

Earlier, someone like Karpov had a big advantage over the others because the Soviet state arranged seconds for them; arranged training camps for them. They used to tell five or six Grandmasters to work for this guy. So, people from outside had enormous disadvantage over the Soviet players. Take for example, someone like Fisher. The reason why he was such a hero was because despite such a big disadvantage, he was still able to beat them. You will see that these two guys had a big advantage in the eighties because they had this team constantly supplying them with fresh ideas.

Nowadays, if I find a good idea, I check it with my friend by e-mail. He may be living in St.Petersburg or Israel or Moscow but I can e-mail and ask him, what do you think of this idea? I do this a lot with my friends. In a way, we are able to train together despite the distances. So, there are many aspects. It is difficult to say whether it is good or bad. In certain areas, it has been good and in certain areas, it has been bad.

Bad, in what way?

It forced us to work a lot on computers and the number of variations has grown enormously. It is easier because you can double-check everything. But now you have to remember much more. Also, it used to be an art in itself to analyse the adjourned games. Now that area has completely disappeared. We don’t have adjourned games anymore because we have computers everywhere.

The older generation who are not very conversant with computers probably feels that computers came along and outclassed them. Maybe people who are around 45 could have had a longer career if they knew how to use computers. Okay, this is true with any technology. My point is, if you ask hundred people, twenty may say, it is a bad thing.

You talked about the kind of help the Russian players got from the state even in the eighties. It might have been tough for you too initially

I think it didn’t help many of the Russian players as well. Only the Russian top benefited from the state support and a lot of others didn’t benefit. Now many players have access to all the best tools.

Were you also disadvantaged in the beginning?

No, I wouldn’t say in general I was disadvantaged. I was one of the first people to get used to the new technology. In 1987, I was only a World junior champion. At that time, there was still quite a bridge to be passed to reach their level.

You played against Fritz and Rebel last year. How different was it playing a machine and a human being?

I don’t mind playing against a computer once in a while. It is a different experience because you try not to play tactical positions and that’s a disadvantage.

Do you have to change your game against the machine?

Yes, you change it. You try to play strategic positions, very boring positions because computers are quite helpless in these positions. And, there is no psychology involved in a game against the computers. For the human, it has only negative effects because in almost any position, the first impulse is not to play the natural move. The first impulse is to play an anti-computer move. This is not natural. Against a human being, you wouldn’t do that. You wouldn’t say, I am going to play an anti-Karpov move or an anti-Kasparov move. You try to play only the best move. And, this will produce the best result in the end. But against computers, you are almost always trying to avoid tactics because the odds are against you in this matter.

Sometimes, I can save some positions very easily with the computer that I could never save against a human being. Many computers simply don’t understand certain things till it's too late. I have saved many games with computers because they had no clue. I know immediately what’s going to happen in 25 moves, let’s say. Because certain positions are like that you can tell, okay after the next fifteen moves, you can manoeuver and you can wait. But the computer doesn’t know the concept of waiting. It calculates. It can calculate infinitely and get into a position whereas I understand that it can’t escape a trap.

A human understands that without any calculation, but a computer, no matter how much it calculates, it cannot understand that. So, as soon as it gets into such positions, you can completely relax. Then, the psychology is working positively. You feel very good and start playing excellently.

In general, I think, it is negative because it affects the humans. We have not learnt how to be really cold and emotionless against these machines. May be they should program some emotions also into computers to even it. Clearly, computers don’t win games because they are superior to humans. This is a myth. They win games because of psychology. The human cannot understand how the computer thinks perfectly. The present format of human versus computers is simply unfair. The computers are allowed to access database whereas we are not. I have no access to any database and I have to remember everything. People argue that computers simply use its memory and the database is in its memory. These are questions that you can’t argue but I think it is quite unfair.

For instance, if you were to remove the database, you can have a computer ten times faster than it is today. Ten times faster than Deep Blue, easily. If it couldn’t consult its opening book, my result would improve immediately. I think most of the top twenty, thirty players could beat Beep Blue if it wasn’t allowed to consult an opening database. Or, even the opening database is restricted to a certain size. What happens is, their opening database is almost 400-500 MBs of information. It has access to all the games that are played but we have to remember all that. Or, if I am allowed to have a computer with me, okay, I can’t check my thoughts but I can see what was played at any given time. My result would then go up.

Also, humans versus computers is being held at very unfair circumstances. I am not saying, unfair in terms of handicap. What I say is, these rules were set when computers were so weak and didn’t matter. Now it is difficult to change them.

Did you enjoy the games that you played with Fritz and Rebel?

They were okay. As a professional, you have to play many events; you have to accept these challenges. It is satisfying in its own way.

Not as satisfying as playing against a human being?

It is different, that’s all.

Fritz was described as a monster machine and you defeated it. But Rebel defeated you. How different were these two machines?

In my opinion, Fritz is far superior to the other one. But the day I played Rebel, I was really in bad shape and we played four games of five minutes and I didn’t play Fritz in five minutes. Of course, if you play five minute games, the odds are heavily stacked in favour of computer. It is a hugely misleading impression that the other program beat me.

Before the game against Rebel, the programmer reportedly said, you would beat it comprehensively.

If I played the match again, maybe I could win also. In all the normal games, the games of reasonable time limit, I won against Rebel. They try as hard as possible to publicize the fact that it defeated me and they hope to sell a few programs. There is not much you can do about it. I don’t have the time to run ads in the paper all the time. I think, it is just misleading. In the blitz games, computers are already far superior. At least the odds will always go their way.

Fritz was said to be calculating well over 4 lakh positions in a second still you defeated Fritz. How can a human brain think faster than that?

No way. We do about one position a second! I don’t know what the number means. These numbers don’t mean anything to me. I can’t relate to these figures at all. We have a different way of thinking.

After you became the world champion, we have a bunch young boys and girls making their names on the international scene. How do you feel about being an inspiration to them?

I am very happy. I am very proud.

All of them say they started playing chess only because of you.

I am very happy to hear that.

It was reported that you have plans to start a chess academy.

That’s something I can’t do right now. But it is definitely in the plans.

Do you plan to start it in India?

Yes.

This is a very hypothetical question. Still...Do you plan to play chess even when you are in your thirties and forties?

I don’t think in those terms. I am just going to play as long as I feel like playing, as long as I enjoy playing.

How do you relax?

Well, it depends. Sometimes not thinking about chess. Sometimes thinking about chess. Sometimes I watch movies. I listen to music. I go for walks. Whatever catches my fancy.

What kind of movies do you watch?

Generally action films. Comedies too. In the last few months, I haven’t seen many movies. I was training for the World Championship. Maybe I will make up for that now.

What do you generally do when you come to Madras? Of course, journalists like me pester you for interviews. (Earlier, Anand spoke to rediff for the millennium special too.)

I think there is not much time left after rediff! (laughs) I think I spent most of my time in India with rediff! Yes! (laughs) I like spending time with my parents and we play cards together a lot. And, in the evening, I go to the beach for twenty minutes or half an hour.

Don’t you get mobbed?

I generally go when it is pretty dark. Generally I like to just sit at home and talk to my parents.

Do you still discuss chess with your mother?

We discuss. I tell her all about the games I played and update her with all the gossip. We talk about how the tournament went and what happened there and things like that. Yes, she can follow the technical stuff if I explain it to her. But we generally discuss other stories. I tell these stories to both my parents. In fact, my father is also interested in these stories.

Photographs: Sanjay Ghosh

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