You have to hand it to Anatoly Karpov for being sportive in even agreeing to an Advanced Chess match with Grandmaster Vishwanathan Anand. "Advanced Chess" is a modern chess format, where players can consult with a chess-playing computer before making the moves. Karpov's knowledge of computers that play chess turned out to be so paltry that Anand crushed him 5-1 in the six game series.

Karpov must have foreseen the outcome, but he came to play anyway. He was in time trouble in almost all the games, and had to play at times without the luxury of consulting his computer.

In contrast, Anand displayed a delicate dexterity with the software and outfoxed his opponent completely. He won all three games with Black, and also managed an additional win with White pieces in game six. Only two of the six games were drawn.

Fredric Feidel, the cofounder of ChessBase, the most widely used chess games database program in the world, praised Anand's dexterous use of the computer, saying ``I haven't seen anyone use ChessBase so wonderfully.''

To be fair to the Russian Grandmaster, it must be pointed out that he seems to be completely new to this format of play, if not the concept of using computers itself. There were reports of Karpov being shown some of the elementary functionality of the software as late as the day before the match began.

Given the situation, the chess community has treated this Advanced Chess encounter between Anand and Karpov as more of an exhibition than a real chess match.

Anand's great performances in recent tourneys, combined with a general poor showing by Karpov have many believing that Anand today is stronger than Karpov was in his prime.

Anand has a long history of taking on computer opponents that dates back to 1994, when he defeated 'Genius' in the London PCA/Intel Grand Prix. More recently, in July of 1998, Anand played 'Rebel', an excellent Chess playing computer. He lost the Blitz match, but won the standard games with a score of 1.5-0.5. He had an identical score in his match against Fritz 5.0.

Things would certainly not have been as one sided as this, if Anand's opponent had been Garry Kasparov, as was originally intended. Kasparov pulled out of the match due to differences with the organisers. Garry's knowledge of computers is extensive, plus his preparation for the widely publicized 1997 match with IBM's 'Deep Blue' would have stood him in good stead here.

With Karpov demolished, and his decision not to participate in the FIDE world championships in Las Vegas this August, Anand has only one goal left. To forcibly wrest the title of World Champion from Kasparov.

Anand is a much stronger and mature player than his former self that faced Kasparov in 1995 for the PCA world chess championship match. For some Chess fans, October cannot arrive too soon.

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