The Atlantic, which was formerly known as The Atlantic Monthly, is an American
magazine founded in Boston in 1857. Originally created as a literary and cultural
commentary magazine, its current format is of a general editorial magazine primarily
aimed at a target audience of "thought leaders". The magazine is known
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Rook Dreams
Review by Edward Tenner
This past fall, the world championship match in Bonn, Germany, wasn’t
the only thing stirring up chess enthusiasts. ChessBase
10, a beefier new version of the massive database program that is the tournament
player’s gold standard, had arrived.
ChessBase, introduced for Atari in 1987, is now a compendium of 3.75 million
games reaching back more than five centuries. Compiling statistics, including
the results from games just downloaded from the Web, it also shows percentages
of games won after various alternative moves. The heritage of chess thus becomes
a vast, branching cave to be explored game by game. Young Bobby Fischer huddled
in the New York Public Library stacks with Russian magazines, constantly resetting
pieces. Today’s contenders can play through new games online and onscreen,
adding their own games to the ChessBase record and learning more rapidly from
their mistakes.
Knowing thine adversary has never been easier. Even the victorious defending
champion Viswanathan Anand has said he can’t afford to have a favorite
opening. Under pressure because of efficient scrutiny through databases and
analysis engines like Fritz (another popular high-level software program that
works out new moves), top players must prepare more variations than ever.
