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Game Over - Kasparov and the Machine


Directed by Vikram Jayanti
Starring Marc Ghannoum, John Searle (III), Terry Wogan, Michael Greengard, Joel Benjamin
Velocity / Thinkfilm

List Price: $7.99
Available: Usually ships in 24 hours
Sales Rank: 48764
Release Date: May 31, 2005
Rated:  
Running Time: 85 minutes
Theatrical Release: November 18, 2008
Studio: Velocity / Thinkfilm


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EDITORIAL REVIEWS

Product Description
In may 1997 gary kasparov widely regarded as the greatest chess player the world has ever seen played deep blue - a hulking 1.5 ton ibm supercomputer. As it played out in the media this was a chess tournament & scientific experiment that would our dominance as the most intelligent entity on the planet Studio: Image Entertainment Release Date: 10/23/2007 Run time: 84 minutes Rating: Pg


CUSTOMER REVIEWS (Average Customer Rating: 3.5 based on 31 reviews)

Enjoyable but shallow  
Game Over: Kasparov and the Machine examines the infamous 1997 rematch between then world-champion Gary Kasparov and IBM's chess supercomputer, Deep Blue. Kasparov had defeated an earlier incarnation of Deep Blue the previous year, but in 1997 the new and improved computer defeated him in a six-game match: two wins to one with three draws.

Speculation was rampant that IBM had rigged the match by allowing a human player to override the computer on certain key moves. As evidence, conspiracy theorists pointed to moves wherein Kasparov offered the sacrifice of a pawn, and the computer turned it down. Pawn sacrifices, which strong players often use to garner positional advantages or to gain initiative, were long considered too abstract for a computer to understand. A machine, many argued, could not possibly see far enough ahead to truly appreciate the subtle positional edge that a good sacrifice can provide. Therefore, a human must have been helping the computer out. Who could expect a human player, even one as brilliant as Kasparov, to defeat the combination of human and computer?

The film makes frequent reference to "The Turk", a chess-playing automaton that was famous in the 18th century. Travelling around Europe, it impressed monarchs and noblemen with its astonishing ability. The Turk was a hoax; a human player, concealed beneath the machine, operated the arms and made the moves himself. Dramatizations of the historical episode, borrowed from black and white films, appear frequently throughout Game Over (in fact they constitute something of a thematic refrain). The analogy is obvious, and certainly compelling. Could Deep Blue have been a modern day Turk, an elaborate fraud perpetrated by IBM to garner publicity? It's hard not to be intrigued by the question, but unfortunately, the intrigue ends there. "Game Over" does not present a single shred of evidence to support its hypothesis. Instead, it relies esclusively (and I do mean exclusively) on innuendo.

Over and over, a shaky camera presents us with blurred visuals while a hushed voice wonders aloud about the supposedly "un-computer-like" moves that Deep Blue made during the match. One interviewee after another questions the machine's strangely profound understanding of the game. The film ends with a gradual interior tracking shot of the warehouse in which the de-commisioned supercomputer now resides (it's hard not think of the final shot from Raiders of the Lost Ark), while the narrator laments that the truth may never be known. All this is very mysterious, yes, but it's also utterly unconvincing.

It wasn't so long ago that otherwise rational people proclaimed with certainty that no computer would ever beat a human world champion. Chess, they said, is too full of pattern-recognition, of strategy and subtlety, for a computer to grasp in full. How could any person with even a basic knowledge of chess and computer science have legitimately believed this? While the number of possible positions in chess is astronomical, it is still finite, and a sufficiently powerful computer should, in theory, be able to "solve" the game (that is, determine the ideal move for every position). Even today, no computer is capable of this. But as processors grew more and more powerful, it was inevitable that they would come close enough to their lofty goal that they would surpass the limits of human chess ability. From then on, the world champion would never again be a human.

Should it really surprise us that an exceptionally powerful computer (which, at the time, Deep Blue was) would be able to look far enough ahead to see that a small material gain now would cost it dearly later on? "Game Over" sustains itself on nothing more than baseless insinuations about the IBM programming team. What is most offensive about this is the way that the programmers are demonized for crushing humanity's hopes of perpetual chess supremacy. Should it not be viewed as an equally great triumph of human ingenuity that a team of computer scientists was able to create a machine more skilled even than Kasparov, a genius who had devoted his life to the study of chess?

Compounding the absurdity is the fact that a year before this film was released, world champion Vladimir Kramnik drew an eight-game match against the chess program Fritz, which can be purchased for a small sum at your local Best Buy and installed on your home computer. One wonders if the producers of Game Over were aware of this.
September 23, 2008

Not for Chess Players  
A driveling film that should've had 2/3rds of it edited out.

The usual moronic style: Shaky cameras, five second soundbites from a whirlwind of talking heads, "spooky" music, anti-corporatist agitprop, conspiracy theorizing...

Hey, here's a conspiracy theory: Some fool we're supposed to take seriously states that IBM made "billions" out of the match. Maybe they gave the neurotic Kasparov a few million to lose?

Hey, players: read Pandolfini's book on the match. I'm not a great fan of Mr. P, but it's a move-by-move Chernev-style annotation of the six games. Quite interesting and taught me, at least, a bit more about the game.

Anyway, K lost the match, and serve him right. Deep Blue didn't win it.

Karpov would've crushed DB: Play the board, not the man/machine!




June 24, 2008

Game Over-Kasparov and Politics  
As a strong chess player myself, the movie was very interesting in finding out more about the world chess champion, how his mind works, and how he looks at the world from his point of view be it real or imagined.

No question about it. Garry is a very unique individual and appears to belong to a new breed of chess players, a breed that is idealistic but at the same time very engaged in world events with a willingness to change events and sometimes take extreme risks in doing so.

To truly appreciate the film and understand Garry's behaviour, one must first know the man, his background, how he got to where he is, and the tremendous pressure he has been subjected to in the chess world, right before taking the world championship from Anatoly Karpov. Unlike Bobby Fisher, Garry has the human element and he can express himself very well in English which incidentally is not his native tongue.

What impresses me most about this man is that unlike most world chess champions, he has his ego very much under control. His demonstration of frustration over IBM's very secretive tactics is understandable. IBM's failure to make "deep blue" transparent to the rest of the world and most particularly to the challenger, Garry Kasparov, has resulted in the "cheating" controversy. So IBM is also partly to blame because of their unwillingness to be "transparent" and to make the computer logs available to Garry's team. This behaviour makes IBM suspect because of their secretiveness and unwillingness to put the computer in front of Garry actually printing out the computers responses. He probably would have preferred to play "deep blue" face to face where he could actually see the computer print out or the suggested best move (similar to computer chess programs available in the market today) so that human intervention will not even be suspected. This is very similar to the USA GMAT exams under the new computer based testing format where the candidate get's their test scores immediately right after taking the exams eliminating the possibility of "lobbying or backroom negotiations" after the fact. The computerized exams insures that no human intervention will happen right after the exam is completed. In the paper based test completed in "pencil" which is not indelible, of course the answers can be erased and changed to favor a certain University or college who have influence, or certain interest groups for that matter. In Europe and Asia, board exams are conducted in "ink" and is indelible. The candidates for licensure also have a chance to question and dispute their score reports, and the government encourages the candidate to take a look at his/her examination sheet if he/she suspects any errors made by the evaluator. So the candidates are comfortable and are given a chance to question the body responsible for scoring the exams if cheating is suspected to have been initiated by the "test-administrator" and not by the "candidate."

Unlike the other great grandmasters who died penniless, like Alexander Alekhine, or became vagabonds or gypsies like Bobby Fisher who was exiled from the USA due to irresponsible political comments he made against the Bush administration, Garry Kasparov appears to live in a different and down to earth political reality. You see, Garry is a survivor. And not only that he is a folk hero back in Russia. He is the most normal world chess champion I have ever seen over the years. In his youth he used to date gorgeous women in New York City. In fact he was even given a plane to escape the USSR, where he grew up, to come to the USA years ago when he was a young man during the turmoil that was happening there. He has also worked at the New York Times, and has been invited to numerous talk shows in the USA and have been a guest of world leaders and business leaders all around the world.

But what fascinates me most about this man is that he continues his influence far beyond the chess world and into the political arena back in Russia after retirement from the game. In just 2 years since his retirement from the professional game of chess he has emerged as a leader of the political opposition in Russia, earning the world's admiration for his dogged and fearless campaign for free and fair elections in his homeland. Infact just last year, 2006-2007, he was arrested in Moscow together with a number of his followers for his involvement in public demonstrations against the "Putin" regime. He was eventually released. If he probably entered the political arena earlier we may see possibilities for him in the Russian Politburo. Or perhaps if he was a lawyer like Dr. Alekhine or an engineer like Jose Raoul Capablanca, then he would have secured political clout with the KGB or even with Putin himself because most Russian leaders are academically credentialed. But the Putin regime I think views him as a mere "chess player." And being the best "chess player" in the world does not necessarily qualify you for Putin's job. But it does help him influence the political process in various ways because of his popularity.

My take on the movie is that it was made to serve Garry's political ambitions beyond the chess world. He used it as a vehicle and platform to get his message across with the support of not only IBM but various multinational corporations behind the scenes. It is obvious that the USA is supporting him. Whether or not there is CIA involvement here remains to be seen. Perhaps, if he was an engineer, a lawyer, or a professional accountant in the USA, he could have taken Roberto Goizueta's job and would have spear headed the Coca-Cola corporation's recovery overtaking Pepsico once more. But one thing I do know, he is putting his life on the line today back in Russia. He could have just lived here in the USA, and enjoyed the good life. He has found his fortune in the USA, is rich and comfortable by USA standards, and yet he wants to go back. He could've gotten his USA MBA and run for governor of New York and may be the white house later on. But something, that is not clear, perhaps only he knows, has brought him back to Moscow. Whether this can be seen as a "political vendetta" or not, one thing is clear, he is no longer under the protection of the United States government. Putin is tolerating him because perhaps deep down Putin likes him for this man has truly brought glory to Russia.

February 17, 2008

A Missed Opportunity  
I went into this movie with high hopes. The subject of a grand chess master taking on a supercomputer is inherently fascinating, and could have been used as a jumping-off point to investigate a rich vein of interesting topics: what was the philosophical significance of this showdown between man and machine? What did it mean to the chess world, and to society at large? What defines a grand master-level chess player, and what goes through Kasparov's head as he contemplates his individual moves and overall strategies? How does this differ with the problem-solving programming that the computer is relying on? Just how do you program a computer to simulate the chess-playing style of a grand master? And how can a documentary movie creatively capture the essence of a complex chess match onscreen, making it real and involving for the average audience?

Sadly, "Kasparov and the Machine" does not address a single one of these questions -- especially not the last one. It is a plodding documentary that mostly consists of a film crew following Kasparov around the rather drab location where the match took place years earlier, as he reflects on his poor treatment by IBM. It also features some uninformative interviews with the computer programmers, and a lot of footage from a black and white silent movie about a chess machine from the 1800's that is terribly overused. A poorly substantiated conspiracy theory is advanced that IBM was somehow not playing fairly, and what might have been a good 30-minute PBS special is stretched out into a very thin feature length film.

This could have been a great, thought-provoking film exploring the ramifications of a man pitting his intellect against an artificial intelligence. It is tragic that the filmmakers missed such an opportunity to sweep us away with the complex consideration that this subject deserved.
March 11, 2007

Rage Against the Machine  
In the May 1997, Gary Kasparov, the reigning Chess World Champion and by the opinion of many, the greatest chess player ever played Deep Blue, an IMB Supercomputer. At its best scenes, the film is an entertaining look at the never ending competition of human intellect against artificial. The greatest player on Earth does not like and does not know how to lose, and his account of the match and its result is quite bitter. He can't believe that the computer program, the combination of 0s and 1s may appear to think like a human. It was sad and nostalgic for me to see Gary like that. I remember him back in 1985, 22 years old World Champion after his victorious match with Anatoly Karpov. In his (and former mine) country millions of people that knew nothing or next to nothing about ancient game of chess (All I know that the first move e2 - e4 will not bring me any problems, at least for a little while) passionately wished him to win. Gary was not just a brilliant chess genius, a wonder-boy - he was also a symbol of hope, of changes not only in the chess politics but in the life of the whole country that was ready for changes.

2.5/5


February 27, 2007


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