World chess master Kasparov makes first-time appearance in Romania

Chess grand-master Garry Kasparov will come to Romania this November to speak at a Bucharest conference on strategic thinking organized by local news outlet Profit.ro. Kasparov, who was born in Azerbaijan, was the youngest world chess champion in history in 1985, at the age of 22. He was the under-18 chess champion of the USSR at the age of 12 and the world under-20 champion at 17. He defended his title five times, including in a legendary series of matches against arch-rival Anatoly Karpov. Kasparov broke Bobby Fischer’s rating record in 1990 and his own peak rating record remained unbroken until 2013. He is also known for his matches against the IBM super-computer Deep Blue in 1996-1997. He discusses artificial intelligence and human creativity in a book published this year: Deep Thinking: Where Machine Intelligence Ends and Human Creativity Begins. Kasparov was one of the first prominent Soviets to call for democratic and market reforms and was an early supporter of Boris Yeltsin in his push to break up the Soviet Union. In 1990, he and his family escaped ethnic violence in his native Baku as the USSR collapsed. He retired from professional chess in 2005 and in 2012 was named was named chairman of the New York-based Human Rights Foundation, succeeding Vaclav Havel. The chess champion has been a contributing editor to The Wall Street Journal since 1991 and is a frequent commentator on politics and human rights. He is the author of a book on decision-making, How Life Imitates Chess, which is available in over 20 languages. He also penned two series of chess books, My Great Predecessors and Modern Chess. At the Bucharest conference, Kasparov will deliver a talk on strategic thinking and its role in business, the short-term impact of current political decisions on people’s lives and how one can use technology to be successful in any area. He will also discuss the chess match with IBM’s Deep Blue, the organizers said. Further details on the conference here. editor@romania-insider.com (Photo source: www.kasparov.com)