Can A Computer Beat Anand?

Viswanathan Anand of Indiawon the world chess crown in a twelve match playoff with Kramnik in October2008. In May 1997, a chess programrunning on the IBM Deep Blue computer beatGarry Kasparov the then reigning world chess champion in a six match playoff. Do you think a computer program can beat Anandtoday in chess match play? Both chess players and computer programs haveprogressed a lot since the summer of 1997.

In the 1995, twentymatch, world chess championship, Anand scored the first full point in the ninthmatch, but went on to lose against Kasparov because of his intimidatorytactics. Kasparov declared after the match that Anand was good at chess but wasnot psychologically up to the task of playing him. Interestingly, it is said that Kasparov lost to deep blue in 1997 because he couldn’t stare it down.

Today routinely chess programs can beat you and me and even chess Grand Masters (GMs) at chess. So are chess programs more intelligent at chess than the average human. And even more importantly can a chess program beat Anand?

Ofcourse many people go on and on about computer programs being written by humans so the computer cannot be more smarter than the human. But then remember Deep Blue was built by computer scientists and one chess International Master. Individually or even together they would have been no match for Kasparov. It was Deep Blue that beat him afterall.

Today mathematical modelling has permeated all walks of life from sports to finance.