padman haven't you ever seen the Kramnik vs Fritz mate in 1?
Judith once said that it might be possible to beat a computer, but it would take more effort and preparing then she would want to put in it. But yes, it would be very interesting to se some top players gather up against a strong computer.
How to make chess profitable
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Bobby Fischer made chess fashionable for awhile, but then interest in America declined after he refused to defend his title. We need gimmicks to get the public interested in chess.
The computer should be viewed as a potential source of considerable wealth. One of the notions that chess professionals believe incorrectly is that computers will be permanent World Champions, that the age of human domination in chess is over and now only machines will play chess, "really well".
This is a quaint notion because it fails to recognize why chess professionals usually lose. They may play the computer equal or better for forty moves and then "pull a Kramnik" and overlook mate in one move.
To get around blind spots i.e. to avoid blunders the answer is simple:
Have top professionals play consultation matches against computers. Here is the team I'd like to see:
1)World Champion Garry Kasparov, the top player of all time,
2)GM Judit Polgar, the strongest woman of all time. She and Garry have similar attacking styles but Garry is the better positional player,
3)GM Joel Benjamin because he is an American (Americans like Americans), but more importantly, he understands computer programmers. His job would be to step inside the minds of the programmers and probe for weaknesses,
4)GM Victor Korchnoi. He and Joel are very materially oriented; they will provide a foil to the attacking specialists Polgar and Kasparov to analyze defensive resources by the computer.
This would be filmed before a large studio audience with their own computers, but obviously away from the players.
Millions of chess programs have been sold world wide so millions of chess players could follow the games and come up with strategies the pros might miss.
Here is the suggested format:
120/40 with time delay. While the players are playing the game, they will be expected to think out loud. In other words, we get to step into the minds of these professionals while they are actually considering strategies and tactics in real time. Think what would happen when they consider a faulty plan and the audience picks up on it! It would have spectacular audience appeal.
Prize fund: $100,000/win, $50,000 draw, with an additional purse of $5,000,000 to the winner of the match. Their opponent: Any computer or any combination of computers.
Potential sponsors:
The games would be broadcast in real time from one or more locations to dozens of countries, so there will be an audience of millions of viewers for each game. This will attract sponsors. Have columnists present who can give a blow by blow description in French, Spanish, Russian, various Indian and Chinese dialects, etc.
The only rules change that humans will need to beat computers for 100 years is the one second rule: Under NO circumstance may computers be permitted to make any move faster than one move/second. In simple Rook and pawn endings, the human professionals will be able to run the computers out of time. Programmers are going to have to program to deal with his, perhaps going into blitz mode five minutes before time control so that they can make an additional 100-200 moves to avoid losing on time.