Anand or Gelfand?

[David G Congalton]

kramnik did not make a single move that he had not prepared with whatever engine he used but when he followed his preparation to the letter (and leko was out of his preparation) then it turned out his preparation was losing and leko managed to drum up a mating attack which the computer had missed as it had been too long-term given the amount of time the computer had been given.

The moral of the story was that as there can be so many critical positions to analyse in preparation,particularly of such complex openings as the marshall, that the computer had only been given a small amount of time to evaluate that particular variation, so perhaps even nowadays the trust but verify approach still applies to a certain extent, even in world championship matches?

Nigel Short made some very interesting remarks during commentary today regarding using chess engines to analyse. Short was not using computer assistance to assess the game. In short (ha ha ha) he basically said that analysing without engines improved a players understanding of positions.

I originally played in an era without these magic engines and used a board and perhaps an opening book or two to try and improve my game. For young people a book is an olden day thing made of paper which could be quite thick. I can't say this method of analysing made me a fantastic player but I still get more understanding of a position by looking at it on an actual board than a computer screen. Is this a further sign that I am behind with the times? Is it all computers, search engines and kinder surprise books for today's young starlets?