
Excerpts from the NYT article:
Game databases, many of which are online, give players information about what
opening strategies their opponents use. And rapidly improving chess computer
programs can analyze games and make suggestions about what to play. In many
cases, electronic game collections are replacing books as chess players' primary
source of information.
Using computers and databases during tournament matches is not allowed, and
most players say that cheating is rare. But using such systems to help prepare
has become ubiquitous. Before people started using databases, a player who
came up with a new move in an opening might be able to use it several times
before enough people found out about it to start preparing for it. Now innovations
are known almost as soon as they are played. "The profit maybe is very small,"
Mr. Kasparov said. "You can only use it one game."
Mr. Kasparov himself may be most responsible for the widespread adoption of
electronic aids by chess players.
André Schulz, editor of Chessbase (chessbase.com), an online database and
news site based in Hamburg, Germany, said that Mr. Kasparov met one of the
company's founders, Matthias Wullenweber, in 1985, when Mr. Kasparov was preparing
for his second world championship match against Anatoly Karpov. With suggestions
from Mr. Kasparov, Mr. Wullenweber created a program that would allow someone
to search a database of games based on different specifications, like player
names, positions and opening names.
Mr. Kasparov was enthusiastic about the resulting program and when Mr. Wullenweber
started selling it, Mr. Kasparov gave it an endorsement sure to catch the attention
of other players. "It's the greatest development for chess since the invention
of the printing press," Mr. Kasparov said.
To read the
full article you will have to register. This is free and requires
only that you give an email address which, in our experience, is not used by
the NYT for any exploitive commercial purposes.