The recent victory by a computer over the World Go Champion brought the Deep Blue-Garry Kasparov match back into the spotlight. Hard as it is to believe, it has been 20 years since Deep Blue won and the demise of human chess was declared.
The actual result (and it’s my editorial in the Summer 2017 issue of Empire Chess)? Record turnouts this year at the SuperNationals and the NYS Scholastic Chess Championships. Every single player in both of those events was born after the Deep Blue victory. All of them took up chess anyway, even knowing computers were “better.”
The Royal Game lives.