George Plimpton is editor of The Paris Review, but he is perhaps best known for practicing what he calls "participatory journalism." He has played quarterback for the Detroit Lions and triangle for the New York Philharmonic, boxed with Archie Moore and flew on the trapeze for the Clyde Beatty-Cole Brothers circus. He has written about these feats and others in books such as Paper Lion and Out of My League. He also played chess against Garry Kasparov one summer day in Sag Harbor, Long Island several years ago.

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Plimpton on his chess match against Kasparov:
Well it was some years ago, I think, three or four years ago, in the garden of John Scanlon, the public relations czar. He had Kasparov staying with him, and he asked about eight of us to come and play simultaneous boards against Kasparov, who was -- is -- the world champion. My chess is somewhat amateurish, to put it mildly, but I couldn't resist, since I do that sort of thing, participatory journalism, competing against the greats. So it was a wonderful opportunity for me.

So on this lawn we played these games, and I had the exquisite pleasure of putting Mr. Kasparov in check. This happened rather early on. At one point, he came over to the board and he said, "What is this mess?" And he then went on to another board and then another one, and I saw that if I moved my bishop I could put his king in check. So I moved the bishop on the diagonal, and I called out in this loud voice, "Check!" And there was quite a flurry of excitement at the other end. Everybody came crowding around and, of course, he removed my bishop with a pawn. I knew it was going to be removed. It was a kamikaze move. But there was something wonderful about saying to the champion of the world, "Check!"

Then we had a long conversation afterward, not about chess, oddly, but about politics. Most everybody knows who knows him that his great passion in Russia is his political views. I thought he was a fascinating gentleman to talk to, but the thing, of course, I'll remember about that afternoon was putting him in check.

Plimpton on whether, as Newsweek put it, Kasparov represents "The brain's last stand:"
I don't think a machine that has learned to play chess -- they've spent years and years and years and years on this thing -- and they had failure, failure, failure. And they had all these people pumping all their energies and time into this machine just to play chess.

That doesn't mean the machine is going to walk out of the hotel there and start doing extraordinary things. It's a very particularized type of machine. Over the years, it may be that the machine is likely to be able to do other things. I'm not sure what, at the moment. It can't manage a baseball team. They can't tell you what to do with a bad marriage. They can't do any of these things. It's like people always say, "Well, does sport teach you anything in life?" It teaches you certain things, but it doesn't teach you other things. It doesn't teach, as I say, very much about marriage, very much about how to make a living, any of those things. Machines can only do certain things, and I think to call it, you know, even if Kasparov, himself, has said it, the end of mankind, is pushing it.