Traps, Tricks & Mistakes: Beauty Mistake
How should a beautiful chess game look like?
Technology progresses very fast and discussions about IA appear daily in the news. Nobody argues that nowadays chess engines play better than humans. However, can machines create beautiful chess games? Or, can machines evaluate games in terms of beauty?
Beauty is a word used by humans to describe something pleasant, impressive or exceptional.
Chess games with combinations involving unexpected sacrifices are among the most appreciated both for masters and amateurs. Those are games awarded with prize of brilliancy in some tournaments.
But from time to time that is not the case. Public disputes over prizes on beautiful chess games are rare. But one of them was exceptionally memorable. It happened in the tournament of Linares (Spain) in 2003. The awarded player was GM Teimour Radjabov for his win over GM Garry Kasparov.
The fact is that Radjabov (then only 15 years-old) defeated Kasparov, but only because the latter blundered in a winning position.
Below the game with GM Nigel Short’s comments on the critical moves.
When in the ceremony announcing the prize of the most beautiful game, organizers proclammed Radjabov as the winner, Kasparov stunned the crowd by immediately rising and walking to the stage. According to witnesses at the ceremony, into the microphone he strongly criticized the jury shouting: “How could you give the beauty prize to a game in which I lost a piece because of a stupid mistake? It has been selected only because it was the only game that I lost and I consider this to be a public insult and humiliation.”
Journalist Leontxo García, one of the voters selecting the game, explained his decision:
“The concept of beauty is very subjective. When I was watching the game live, giving commentary to the spectators on their headphones, the move ..Ngxe5 by Radjabov against Kasparov gave me a sensation of beauty. It is beautiful that a child of 15 has the courage to make that move with black against Kasparov in his Linares debut. It is beautiful that a record of seven undefeated years with white, and six years without losing in Linares at all, is broken by a 15-year-old child.
In his rage Kasparov talked about ‘best game’. I explained at the top of my lungs that the paper on which I marked my vote said ‘prize for the most beautiful game’. And that permits a much greater level of subjectivity. What’s more, the tournament did not provide an ‘immortal’ game of sublime beauty. So I felt quite free to vote for Radjabov’s game. And it seems that the majority of the journalists felt the same”
Journalist Mark Crowther, editor of ‘The Week In Chess’, said: “I probably agree that this wasn’t the most accurate game of chess. But for a young player like Radjabov to have the courage and strength to fight Kasparov the best player in the world in a sharp position like this is extremely impressive.”
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Information obtained from “Kasparov’s outburst over beauty prize“
