My Opening Move: an Introduction
By Joel Benjamin
Gambit readers: I’ll be blogging in this space for the next three weeks, so I think an introduction is in order. I’m a lifelong resident of the New York metropolitan area, and I grew up reading Robert Byrne’s column in The Times. I’m honored to count Mr. Byrne among my good friends as well.
I have had a long career as a competitive player, ever since I learned to play chess watching the Fischer-Spassky match on television. I’ve been a grandmaster since 1986. I played in 23 consecutive U.S. Championships, winning three of them and finishing second five times. I’ve been a member of six U.S. teams in the chess Olympiad, and I took home two gold medals from the 1993 World Team Championship.
I was the chess consultant for IBM’s Deep Blue computer, which defeated the world champion Garry Kasparov in a match in 1997. I also had a cameo in the film “Searching for Bobby Fischer.”
I don’t really like to brag so I will stop there, but if you want to know more, feel free to buy my new book, “American Grandmaster: Four Decades of Chess Adventures” (Everyman Books).
Nowadays I don’t have much time for tournaments, but you can find me all over the Internet. I write a Q&A column for chesslifeonline called “Ask GM Joel,” and I play host to “Game of the Week” on the Internet Chess Club. I am especially proud to be writing three Sunday columns for the Times as well as this blog.
Source: NY Times
Anyone is better than Sr. McClain.
Finally a good decision by the NY Times.
It should be clarified, as it says on the bottom of my printed copy of the NY Times: “Joel Benjamin will be a guest columnist for three weeks.”
Certainly an improvement.
Better than Dylan Mc “Lame”.
What a hack.
He needs to go back to ripping the wings off of flies.
Did the NYT get rid of McClain, or is he just on vacation or something like that?
Can GM Benjamin use this forum to come clean and explain the real reason IBM beat Kasparov in 1997 and how the machine was able to find some uncharacteristic moves in game two. It’s been 11 years and we want the truth.