The interview with former World Champion Veselin Topalov was provided by the head of the Anand-Topalov World Championship match press office, Mr. Boyko Hristov.
– Grandmaster Topalov, regardless of the outcome, during the match between you and Viswanathan Anand we watched your dominance in the openings when you played with the white pieces. What caused this fact?
– During my preparation for the match, my manager, Silvio Danailov, and I decided to approach something non-standard and to seek additional resources to increase the advantage over my opponent. It turned out that there is such a possibility. We found that in Bulgaria is installed and running one of the most powerful supercomputers in the world – Blue Gene/P of IBM. And because the computers and the chess software are necessary components in the preparation of the modern grandmasters, we decided to use the vast computational power of this machine.
The IBM’s Blue Gene/P has 8192 processors and you can imagine how huge the possibilities we are talking about. The problem was the fact that in the world currently there is no chess software whose source code is written to work with such a multiprocessor platform. However, Silvio and I, did not give up and he managed to gather an international team of leading experts who have created a project for a chess program that can use the computing power of this extraordinary supercomputer. And now is the time to express my great thanks to the General Manager of IBM Bulgaria Mr. Alexander Rakov and the IT architect of the company Mr. Yovko Lambrev for the access to the resources of Blue Gene/P they provided to us. They have made enormous efforts that our idea become a reality.
I want to thank the Prime Minister of Bulgaria Mr. Boyko Borisov too, who allowed us the access to the supercomputer, which as you know is state owned. So ultimately, even though I lost the match, I managed to achieve a dominance over Anand in the openings in all games, in which I played with the white pieces. This advantage was demonstrated very clear especially in the first game, when I won fast and with decisive priority.
– What’s next for GM Veselin Topalov from now on?
– Short break and chess again. In my closest plans, however, it’s included an initiative to increase young people’s interest in relation of the high technologies and the artificial intelligence, which will be held under my patronage in cooperation with IBM Bulgaria. I will do it because of my direct experience I know how important computers and high technologies are and will be for our future and the career development of the young people.
In a few days we will announce an essay contest among high school students from Sofia concerning a topic in the field of high technologies. The First five best students will form a representative team which will play a mini chess tournament/three games/against the IBM’s supercomputer Blue Gene/P.
After each of the games I’m going to comment on the game and will give my advice to the young players. IBM Bulgaria will arrange for the finalists meetings with its leading experts to get them acquainted with the vast world of high technologies. If all goes as we imagine, the initiative will become annual.
He won first game only because of Anand’s blunder of mixing the moves, he can’t attribute that to the m/c
He really is so full of nonsense. It is good that he lost. He does not seem to have the character to stand up to Dainilov.
“Dominance in the openings… when I played with White pieces..”
Am not quite sure what he means… maybe something is lost in translation
Yup he is so full of it. No wonder Kaspy, kramnik, magnus, anish etc were rooting for Anand.
Man! how arrogant can someone be? You lost ! i don’t care whether you were better at opening games (which in truth ,you are not perhaps 50/50),You lost the war!
OH nice article here Susan, but now that we are certain women are at least equal to men in chess that leaves us with only one idea and thats the possibility that women may in fact be stronger than us.u know Susan theses traditionalist have beeen playin mind tricks on women for centuries! UM refering to this “WOMEN INFERIOR IDEA” as a matter of fact it just cost Irina a few games in that U.S. Championship. Susan i think i saw a video where fides top trickster was busted and he moved his knight again to keep this trick going!!! Peace-2.
Reply to the Anonymous above: when you state that someone talks nonsense you have at least to explain what is nonsense and why.
This usually helps, you know…
Otherwise you only show that you are
a not serious person yourself. Think
about that…
it is a pity that even the super machine and the man team could not defeat the man might of anand…anand, you are 10 times better than topalov, it reveals now…
That was quite the leading question
not much of an interview. However Bobby F was right when he said that all chess players are cheats,these days. Of course he meant that instead of using their natural talents,chess players are ‘forced’ to memorise computer generated lines. This problem will only get worse in the future. A good case for ‘Fischer Random’ or 960 chess. There is no doubt that without computers,Anand is by far the better human chess talent than Topalov.
I cannot imagine what would have been the case if Anand had the same machine instead of Topa.
Since Topalov had to have his matches with Kamsky & Anand in Sofia, I’m glad Kasparov, Kramnik, and Carlsen all jumped into Anand’s camp.
even though I lost the match, I managed to achieve a dominance over Anand in the openings in all games, in which I played with the white pieces???.
If you achieved the advantage why you last the championship.
May be you forgot the super computer lines after opening?
Interesting article. Wonder how the hardware advantage minus a well tuned software compares to Rybka/Firebird/etc
Also, given that IBM was behind this, is that a reason why Kasparov was with Anand? 🙂
Ridiculous. There is a vilage game in our country side. Two people carry two others on their shoulders and the people on top would fight each other. Whoever wins the people carying them need to take the credit.
Chess in future would be something like that unless Fischer’s theory is brought into. What a genius he was to forsee this anarchy in chess!!
Here the sequence of events is interesting. I think that Anand’s team found out during the matches that Topalow had been using the super computer. The story spread among Anand’s friends, specially Mr. Friedel, who then talked to Kramnik and Kasparov and they decided to compensate the advantage that Topalow had!?
Well Topalov was helped by a computer but Anand was helped by Kramnik Kasparov Carlsen and Giri just to name a few !
We are still waiting for Susan’s match summary part2.
Wonder whether she has go the permission yet from 2 other parties.
It is very strange and disappointing for me. I was keenly looking forward to the match analysis.
The problem with chess is that the people at the top now are the ones who, by virtue of having a prodigious memory, are able to exploit computers to win games—often winning games without even leaving the book.
Competitively, this makes chess a joke; furthermore, the top players, who are in on the joke, have no incentive to change the system.
Imagine what chess will be like in 20 years, when I guarantee you, definitive answers will be known on many main opening variations.
There are two possible solutions to this problem.
One is chess960. The other is to prescribe openings by lot. There is precedent for this step: before checkers died completely (and don’t think chess isn’t headed that way at the current rate), so many openings were known to be forced draws that players in tournaments were assigned openings as well as opponents.
Chess 960 is the more appealing choice for fans, who will see a greater variety of positions, and who will know that two people are playing the moves right from the start.
Topalov was playing against not only Anand in this match, but also against Kasparov, Carlsen and Kramnik. Only a silly blunder in game 12 lost the match against this super team. Well done, Topalov.
Hmm
Topo claims the computer gave him better positions and he still got outplayed and lost the match.
I guess Anand must be quite a bit better player than Topo.
“one of the most powerful supercomputers in the world” … Well number 377 in the most recent top 500 list. … Topalov should stick with chess rather than trying to get into high performance computing. What an outrageous waste of computing time as well …
We need to eliminate opening preparation. Turning a chess match into Rybka + memory (everyone used computers here) is a shame. Might as well award the prize to the fastest Googler.
Funny how many people think that getting support from either computers or other good players (i.e. Kramnik, Kasparov, …) decides who will win!
Guess that these people have never played chess (or any other sport for that matter)…think of it like this…I can get Larry Bird or Magic Johnson to teach me how to hold and throw the ball ane make baskets…or I cna research it on teh computer, etc…in the end of I cannot execute this learning in the game itself – it is all useless! That is what happened in the WCC – Anand executed with what he learned in his preparations and Topalov did not – that is why Anand is the Champion – not because he had former WCCs working with him!! The face those individuals decided to work with him is simply a reflection on his personal character and nature.
Topalov seems to think he has som ‘extra status’ because he has allegedly had the use of a computer.
Wrong: it’s just so much bling.
As a previous poster says, if Anand came from behind in most games, his advantage over Topalov is greater than I thought.
Why couldn’t he equalize his games with black?
What’s the use of a computer that will only give a small advantage with white?
That sure sounds like “nonsense” to me.
I can barely handle reading the ignorant comments on this page. It’s a shame there is freedom of speech. Anyway, Topalov acquired an advantage in the opening. Not a decisive advantage. Simply an advantage with his white pieces. You can lose with a minor advantage easily. There is a lot more to the game than a minor advantage in the opening. And stop whining about the use of the computer. Anand had the greatest players of all time assisting him in his preparation; people that have defeated topalov as well. So get off your idiot high horse.