GARRY Kasparov doesn't suffer fools gladly. The problem is that when you speak 15 languages, are an accomplished mathematician, a computer expert, the Wall Street Journal's youngest ever contributing editor and the greatest chess player, that ever lived, everyone else appears to be a fool. As a result, Kasparov has been variously described as aggressive, overbearing and arrogant, but after his victory against the IBM computer Deep Blue in Philadelphia he has begun to tone down his hubris.
Emerging from his 4-2 victory over a machine which had the power to determine a billion moves per second, he announced: "Fighting this computer has changed the way I and, I imagine, most others will approach the game in the future."
The man mainly responsible for dampening Kasparov's feelings of superiority is long dead and practised his mathematical profession on the Western Road in Cork. George Boole, a self taught mathematician from Lincolnshire, became professor of mathematics at the Queen's College in Cork in 1849 despite the fact that he had no academic qualifications. He died in Cork 15 years later.
Combining mathematics with logic, he came up with what is known as Boolean Algebra, which has become the DNA of the computer world. Without George Boole, described as "an earnest, able and, at the same time, a genial man", we might not yet have an Internet, a World Wide Web or, indeed, a chess match between a human and a computer.
The computer Deep Blue, therefore, has strong Cork connections and was the end product of the brain of a "genial man". Yet almost everyone who paid any attention to the recent event supported the human against the "infernal machine".
There was a touch of the Luddite in all of us as we watched the progress of the Philadelphia match, from Deep Blue's victory in the initial game (the first win by a machine over a world champion under championship rules) to Kasparov's rally to an overall 4-2 victory.
The man we rooted for was born 33 years ago in Baku, the capital of what was then the Soviet Republic of Azerbaijan, of a Jewish father and an Armenian mother. His real surname was Weinstein and even the Garry part needs to be explained.
Our letter H is frequently transliterated into Russian as a G. This has led to Russians learning about such well known figures as Adolf Gitler, Robin Good and a certain Sherlok Golms from Bekker Strit.
Garry Kasparov can, therefore, be reduced to simple Harry Weinstein, a kid from the back streets of Baku, born with the smell of Caspian oil in his nose, educated in the Soviet system against which he rebelled at an early age, and showing a natural aptitude for chess even earlier.
He took up the game at the age of six, won the Soviet Youth championship when he was 13, and three years later won his first international tournament. Kasparov studied chess under former world champion Mikhail Botvinnik from 1973 to 1978 and by 1984 was ready to challenge Anatoly Karpov for the world title.
The challenge began badly for Kasparov. He lost four of the first nine games but then adopted a gruelling defensive strategy, playing drawn game after drawn game and finally exhausting his older opponent. He eventually won three games back, but the International Chess Federation had enough and called a halt to the proceedings after 48 games.
Kasparov protested at the decision, and a hate relationship developed between himself and Karpov. This was exacerbated by political differences.
Kasparov became active in anti communist politics following the advent of glasnost and perestroika, while Karpov took the opposite political line and eventually became a people's deputy of the USSR as a member of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
In a rematch in 1985 Kasparov was a narrow winner and, at 22 years, became the youngest ever world chess champion. He successfully defended his title against Karpov on three subsequent occasions, the political rivalry between the two men adding spice to the occasions and giving chess some extra publicity throughout the world.
As well as being the strongest chess player on earth, a mathematician and linguist, Kasparov was endowed with a flair for business, publicity and making money.
In 1993 he and the British player, Nigel Short, whose challenge for the world title he had convincingly overcome, were involved in founding the Professional Chess Association, leaving "amateurs" like Karpov to fend for themselves.
As for the future, Kasparov, in his capacity as a mathematician and computer expert, knows that time is running short for the humans in their battles against the machines. Deep Blue's successor will be considerably more advanced, It is only a matter of time before old George Boole gets his revenge.
