Luncheon With Legend Garry Kasparov
Yesterday, I had the incredible fortune to be invited to a luncheon with the former world champion, chess legend, and Russian dissident, Garry Kasparov. I intentionally chose a seat right across from Garry to see what it felt like to look into the eyes of a chess god. The luncheon was held at CAA the behemoth of a talent agency on Avenue of the Stars in Century City, California. The room was filled with the rank & file that make Hollywood tick – nothing fancy – just accountants, lawyers, agents, their assistants, and one very recognizable Jared Harris (who I embarrassingly called Jack!).
Jared said something funny before the start of the game when I mentioned that I was intentionally sitting directly across from Kasparov, “I suspect he will have known he has won in 3 moves.” Not so fast Jared, I can play 8.g4 like the best of em!
But, in all seriousness, there I was, sitting across from my childhood hero and one of the main reasons why I even have a job coaching and making chess films! He is a chess giant and we are all standing on his shoulders. The litany of chess theory that he contributed to, the developments in engines and computer technology, and the sheer entertainment value he has provided made me more excited than when I had the chance to interview Kramnik for my film King Chess!
Kasparov was in LA-LA Land for a few different reasons, one being that he is on a tour to promote his 501(c)(3) non-profit – Renew Democracy Initiative. He came with the executive director, Yuriel Epshtein, who chairs the “Peace & Dialogue Leadership Initiative (PDLI), an organization dedicated to bridging the civil-military divide”. During the course of the luncheon, they impressed the need to engage the citizenry of America to be an active participant in democracy and combat the hijacking of the tools of the free world (the press and social media), by the world’s worst dictators.
Despite, the serious nature of the program, Kasparov was quite good-natured and before the talk, we chatted about how I am a chess player. I told him that I was 2100 in US Chess and had a trash FIDE rating (it’s true, someone needs to travel Europe and play…). Despite my embarrassment about not having worked hard and become a better player, when the first subject, chess came up he directed his comments basically at me for 10 minutes!
The moderator and organizer, Chris Lawson, started off the talk with a pointed question asking how he felt that Hollywood has portrayed chess. Garry went into it by mentioning Casablanca and immediately looked at me and said “By the way you are a chess player, I tried to look through the screen… it’s an actual position, it’s a very popular opening position of the French Defense that was popular in the early 40’s. It’s real!”
He mentioned this because of the obvious fact that Hollywood gets it wrong a lot of times. They often set up the board the wrong way and make illegal moves. The funny part here is that in this room full of 20+ Hollywood regulars, he was talking directly to me.
He then went on to mention the obvious elephant in the room: The Queen’s Gambit. He was a producer on the film and was at the table with one of the show’s creators Scott Frank in a New York restaurant. Garry said “He suggested me to play Borgov… I said you know it’s a great idea… I’m too busy.” They went on a funny train of thought even suggesting that Garry as Borgov would have two kids at a Mexican zoo. I can only imagine the context here! He continued by saying “That nobody had any expectations but during the pandemic, I had no single appearance where the Queen’s Gambit was not raised in the beginning or the end!” Despite this popularity, he said “Chess is probably 1000x bigger but the problem is the entertainment space is a million times bigger. This certainly is the biggest hurdle that chess filmmakers face. I don’t have an answer for this other than sheer perseverance!
The next topic was AI which Chris Lawson said “There was once a Newsweek cover that said, ‘Brain’s Last Stand’, if you’ve ever had humanity’s hopes and dreams placed squarely on your shoulders…” To that Kasparov responded “No pressure” and the whole room burst out laughing. He had quite a few good things to say about AI and in summation, it seems he is not afraid. He clearly believes in the creative intelligence of humans and seems to have the opinion that AI can’t encompass that.
I apologize for glossing over this section but I want to skip to the most important topic discussed in the room: That is the war in Ukraine. Kasparov founded the Renew Democracy Initiative in February of 2017 in response to the 2016 election which he saw as a direct result of the polarization of politics in the United States. He said that even before the war he worked with CNN to produce a program with 52 dissidents from 28 different countries to convey the message.
By the beginning of the war in Ukraine Kasparov said that they were well equipped to help Ukraine because “that’s now the front line.” Yuriel then added that “supporting Ukraine means that we would be supporting freedom globally… and it can remind Americans what it means to fight for a lot of these values.” Yuriel went on to explain how they are trying to create content to communicate the value of American Democracy.
Kasparov went on to speak about the fight between tyranny and democracy saying “Ukraine, they're defending this frontline singlehandedly.” And, despite the CIA & other intelligence agencies saying that Ukraine would collapse after 4 days, it is still enduring in the fight. Kasparov said “Putin underestimated the will of free people… they reveal the true that there are values worth fighting for and dying for.” He went on to speak about the staggering number of losses on the battlefield. Over 100,000 for Ukraine and 200,000 for Russia. I fact checked these numbers and he is quoting total casualties, wounded and dead. But, that is still staggering and terrible! Kasparov said, “This is not even WWII now, it is WWI, with these trenches and artillery duels…”
The overall point of Kasparov in this talk was to impress the need for Ukraine to win the war. He wants Ukraine to fight all the way and take back the entire territory including Crimea. He said, “What we have to do now is make sure Ukraine wins… this is the move order you cannot reshuffle.” He disparaged the idea of holding talks and believes that Putin is pure evil and that the US should not be sitting down at the negotiating table. I’ll add a little bit of editorial here. I believe this is quite dangerous. Yes, I desperately hope Ukraine will win the war. But, Kasparov has a don’t back down mentality which is fine for chess but in the real world, this gets very messy. I asked him about the threat of nuclear war and he tried to explain that Putin’s regime is a mafia state and that the cronies care more about money and their lives more. This is not quite right somehow as I see the threat of nuclear war as a real and ever-present danger. I believe that we need to have the option of negotiating on the table. Now, will Ukraine even want to? That is an open question as the destruction of their country will make it hard to want to sit down at the table. One sad fact that as a chess coach, shakes me to the core is that there are millions of children with broken futures in Ukraine. These kids have been traumatized, their education disrupted entirely, and they will live unstable lives for decades to come.
At the end of the day, what an incredible experience. I want to thank those at CAA that invited me, Chris Lawson and Joe Mann. No matter what we all believe about the future of the war in Ukraine, I’ll leave everyone with one thing that Kasparov said “It’s not just war on the battleground, it’s ideology and whether it’s Chinese communists or Iranian mullahs or Maduro (President of Venezuela), [we] feel that there is something at stake.”
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