Kasparov's keynote address
By Frederic Friedel
Garry arrived in Barcelona on Tuesday evening and took residence in one of
the most spectacular hotels in Europe. The Rey Juan Carlos has the full patronage
of the King of Spain, and it is a place where many foreign dignitaries (and
celebrities) have stayed.
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Barcelona's five-star GL Hotel Rey Juan Carlos. The
hotel is located at the upper end of the "Diagonal", Barcelona's
main avenue, and offers a spectacular panoramic view over the city and
the sea.
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Orange trees and date palms in the driveway of the hotel. It reminds you that
Barcelona is in the south of Europe, where the vegetation does not
close shop for five months per year.
And a full olive grove, bearing fruit in the middle of October. I tried my "you've
got to taste fresh olives" trick, but unfortunately every potential victim
had read the relevant Linares
reports and refused to comply.
The lobby of the Hotel Rey Juan Carlos – it takes your breath away
Silent, gliding glass elevators take you to the top
A view from the top balcony can scare the daylights out of anyone, even the
strongest chess player of all times, who refused to even contemplate taking
the trip. And right he was too. Standing up there, looking down from the balcony,
one realises how intrinsically unnatural the situation is. Normal human beings
have a very profound respect for gravity and understand exactly what it is capable
of.
The giant congress center where the PeopleSoft Connect convention was held.
It is attached directly to the Hotel Rey Juan Carlos. In the congress center
we were led into a theatre of awe-inspiring dimensions (pictures below). A team
of PeopleSoft technicians were at hand to set up the projection and Internet
connection for my notebook.
That's me in the middle, getting help with the projection and Internet technology.
We are trying to opening a port so we will be able to log into the Playchess.com
server during the presentation.
Garry arrives for a full dress rehersal on the stage. He too was in shock and
awe at the size of the place. It probably brought back memories of his matches
against Anatoly Karpov in the 80s, some of which were held in giant Russian
goverment buildings.
Look at the size of those projection screens!
After everything was set up, and a couple of hours before the lecture, I sat
down with Garry in the lobby (see above) to help him run through his notes and
occasionally supply a word or phrase. Garry had four typewritten pages, with
lots of handwritten notes around the edge. During the lecture he took a single
page of notes onto the stage, apoligised for using this "primitive technology",
glanced at it once and then held the entire lecture from memory.
Running through his lecture notes in the hotel lobby
The obligatory book signing
The real thing, with the giant projection screens displaying the speaker
Kasparov lecture retraced the history of chess research, which essentially
started with the invention in 1450 by Gutenberg of the printing press. Over
the centuries books became more abundant, perodicials appeared, and chess knowledge
could be very widely disseminated. But when Garry Kasparov became world champion
in 1985 he did so essentially using the technology invented by Gutenberg.
Then the world changed, the computer revolution was upon us. In 1986 the first
professional database was created, partly on his instigation; in 1991 the first
easy-to-use chess engines assisted with analysis, and then in 1996 the Internet
increased the speed of data acquisition dramatically. A number of demos on the
notebook illustrated this for the non-chess but extremely computer-savvy audience.
At the end of the lecture Garry spoke about his upcoming match
against X3D Fritz in New York.
Meeting old friends
Now to the personal part. Garry had brought along his wife Julia, who has not
been able to travel with him so freely in the last few years, having to look
after their son Vadim. But now the lad is happy to spend some quality time with
his grandparents, and so we can hope to see Julia at more events in the future
Meeting an old friend – Julia Kasparova with her man
I first met Julia during Garry's match against Deep Blue in Philadelphia in
1996 – the one he won 4:2. At the time she was 19 and hotly pursued by
the US television reporters, who were determined to do an in-depth portrait
of this beautiful creature. Julia didn't want to give interviews and it became
my duty to shield her from obstrusive cameras. At one stage this involved actually
wrestling with a Connie Chung-type anchor who tried sneaking an interview using
a long zoom lens. I was always in the way, she tried to push me out of the line
of sight, screaming that she would sue me for obstructing her in her professional
activity. Quite frightening. In the end the best way was to lock Julia in the
VIP section or simply go shopping with her. We became friends.
This was Julia when I first met her in Philadelphia in February 1996
In the evening there was one of the spectacular dinners which you learn to
expect when you are with Kasparov. It was in the Restaurante Casa Dario in the
Consell de Cent (number 256). We got some kind of a special menu which involved
platter after platter of sea-food specialties being carried in, each more delicious
than the other. A culinary adventure that requires a robust digestive system,
especially if you dig into the different clams, sea-snails, oysters and other
bottom-feeding crustaceans (which I most certainly did). In the end I snuck
a peek at the check – it was not at all exorbitant. Go there if you are
in Barcelona.
A spectacular many-course sea-food dinner with Garry, Julia, a lawyer friend
named Manuel and Kasparov manager Owen Williams
From the Casa Dario it is a short walk to the Rambla, Barcelona's (and one
of the world's) most famous prominade. Even if you go there in the evening it
is full of life, with jugglers, musicians and living statues entertaining the
public between streetside restaurants and colourful stalls. There are a remarkable
number of animal vendors, with song birds and parrots of every kind, cats, rabbits,
hamsters, stoats, even chickens and ducks.
Checking out the animals on sale on the famous Rambla prominade
Julia's favourite animals: cuddly little furballs pretending to be baby rabbits
(they are chinchillas!)
At the end of the Rambla is the Port of Barcelona with the Christopher Columbus
monument and a recreation complex where you can eat, play and shop. Some of
the shops are very beautiful, and we came out with a number of treasures: wall
plaques in the style of Antoni
Gaudi, beautiful porcelain-like statues that are actually candles.
The Kasparovs in the world's most incredible candle shop
End of the evening stroll, in front of the Port de Barcelona building
The champ and his wife ending a successful stay in Spain