The Kasparovs win 20,000 for ailing children

On a recent five-day trip to Georgia former World Chess Champion Garry Kasparov held lectures (on the Geopolitical Challenges in 21st Century) at the Free University and in the Europe House, but he also took time to appear on a Rustavi 2 TV game show. The Rustavi 2 Broadcasting Company, which is based in Tbilisi, Georgia, is a privately owned free to air terrestrial broadcaster that currently reaches around 85% of the country's population. It can be seen via 24-hour satellite broadcasting in Europe, the European part of Russia and in the Middle East.

Kasparov and his wife Dasha on "Who Wants To Win 20,000?” The show is in
Russian, but the questions appear in the national Georgian script

The show in question was is called "Who Wants To Win 20,000?” and is modeled after "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?” The prize is 20,000 Georgian Lari (which converts to about 8,340 Euro or US $11,500). Kasparov pleged to donate whatever he won to a brother and sister who are in need of heart surgery. He was assisted in the show by his wife Dasha.

You can watch the full Rustavi 2 report, but will need to have a Microsoft Windows Media Player plugin installed for Firefox. A higher-res version of the show itself has been posted on YouTube. There is a player embedded at the bottom of the page, but before you start the video you might want to try to answer the questions, which were posted on ChessNews, all by yourself.

1. (20 lari) Which chess award is given to the best chess players in the world?

2. (30 lari) How old was Garry Kasparov in 1985 when he became the youngest World Champion ever in chess?

3. (40 lari) Which grandmaster was in the list of the “Top 100 geniuses of our time” published in the Daily Telegraph newspaper in 2007?

4. (50 lari) Which traditional Georgian dish is similar to pelmeni dumplings?

5. (100 lari, first guaranteed prize) Which of these well-known wines isn’t Georgian?

6. (200 lari) What is the meaning of the phrase “shakh mat”, from which the Russian “shakhmaty” comes?

The host of the show

7. (400 lari) What is the Latin abbreviation in international currency conventions of the Georgian “lari”?

8. (800 lari) Which of these twentieth century events took place before all the others?

Garry knows that three of these events happened in 1961, and cleverly works out which one was the earliest.

9. (1600 lari) Leonid Gaidai’s film “Ivan Vasilievich Changes his Profession” is based on a novel by which author?

10. (3000 lari, second guaranteed prize) The reigning monarch of which country is a five-time Olympic bobsleigh competitor?

Kasparov rejects the correct answer, but is uncertain what to choose. He uses the “Ask the Audience” option and gets it right by a very narrow margin.

11. (4000 lari) Which nervous tic is to be observed in onychophagia?

12. (6000 lari) How many sovereign states make up the European Union?

Kasparov, the memory freak, tries to solve this one by actually naming all the members one by one (try that yourself!). He gets all but one and guesses the nearest number correctly.

13. (8,000 lari) St. Malachy prophesied the name of the last Pope, which is said to be the reason that Popes never choose it. What is that name?

14. (12,000 lari) Which of the following was the last opera of Giuseppe Verdi?

The Kasparovs used their Fifty-Fifty option here – the computer randomly eliminates two incorrect answer choices, leaving the contestant with a choice between the correct answer and one incorrect one.

15. (20,000 lari) Which of these combinations corresponds to the number 5 in Morse Code?

Here the Kasparovs used their Phone-A-Friend option, but unsuccessfully – the time runs out before the friend can come up with a coherent answer. However the charity version of the quiz has an extra lifeline: the contestants may ask for an alternative question. This is what the Kasparovs did.

15. (20,000 lari) Which strait was Louis Blériot the first to fly across on 25 July 1909?

Garry and Dasha spend an inordinate amount of time on this one. Is it a trick question – it seems too easy. Actually they later discovered that the producers had not prepared a difficult question for this final phase, because nobody had got so far in the past.

How far can a plane fly? Garry and Dasha discussing the final question.

Carefull, the host may be trying to trick us...

The decision is taken, 20,000 lari are at stake

The answer is correct, the Kasparovs have won 20,000 for the children's urgently needed heart surgery. Garry told us that in the phone-in action an additional 46,020 lari was donated.

Watch the show

If you speak Russian, even a smattering, the show is well worth watching (our Russian speaking friends tell us)

The correct answers are; 1=A, 2=B, 3=C, 4=A, 5=C, 6=B, 7=D,
8=C, 9=D, 10=A, 11=D, 12=C, 13=B, 14=B, 15=B and 15=D.