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Chess Master Kasparov To Retire

Posted by CowboyNeal on from the big-blue-relieved dept.

fembots writes "Former world champion Gary Kasparov has announced that he is to retire from competitive chess. The chess grandmaster, a leading critic of Mr. Putin, heads a group of top Russian liberals who have joined forces to keep Vladimir Putin from staying in the Kremlin after 2008."

3 of 320 comments (clear)

  1. Goodbye by arron_nz · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I actually played Kasparov along with about 20 others at the same time as part of a school chess program. Smart man. He beat us all, of course. Best wishes for the future.

    --
    garble
  2. Sad News by techsoldaten · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I have always admired Gary Kasparov and the things he has done for the chess world, I never really enjoyed playing through someone's else games until I saw his.

    There was a time I really wanted to be a great chess player. I would go to bed at night and stay up thinking of moves from games I had played earlier in the day. It would frustrate me to see so clearly what I should have done in certain situations, and aggravate me that things became so obvious after the fact. Sometimes I would go to sleep and dream of games that never even happened, and was really having trouble with the role the game was playing in my life.

    Found a book of translated interviews with grandmasters at a used bookstore and it straightened me out. Rosendo Balinas was a prude and never struck me as a real human being. Bobby Fisher was just indominatable and I had trouble relating to him. Kasparov, on the other hand, was kind of a playboy. He had real interests outside the game and saw the relation between what he was doing on the table and what political organizations did throughout the world. He talked about the 'chessbrain' syndrome and how he learned to turn it on to new things.

    Long story short: I read about Kasparov, studied Kasparov, tried to walk and talk like Kasparov. Doing so helped me become an easier person to be around. Eventually got laid, had a kid, took an interest in things outside chess.

    M

  3. New champion by szlevente · · Score: 5, Interesting

    With his retirement, he's delivered the final blow to the unification plan. The only way a new champion would've gotten credibility was by defeating Kasparov. Now that he's out, I'm sure there's going to be another mess around the championship cycle. But it's understandable he got fed up with FIDE, and called it quits.
    Anyway, he ended his career with a bang, winning in Linares. Too bad it's over, I'm sure he could've had a much longer career than Korchnoi.
    I just wonder, who the candidates for WCH are now...Anand, Kramnik, Leko? Topalov sure want his share now, that he's tied with Kasparov at Linares.