The Imitation Game: Shaping AI through history

Abstract

In the year of 1964, during the USSR Chess Championship, a gripping game ensured between Mikhail Tal, often regarded as a creative genius and one of the best attacking players of all time and grandmaster Evgeni Vasiukov. Mikhail Tal is known for his unpredictability and improvisation, often sacrificing pieces for a better position in the game. After losing 2 pawns each, at the 19" move Tal sacrificed his knight for a pawn to weaken his opponents king. He almost took 40 mins to sacrifice the knight. The next day, every newspaper emphasized about this move, mentioning how he analyzed all possible variations and made the best possible move. Later, he laughingly puts away all these speculations that in reality, he started thinking of all variations but possibilities seemed endless and somehow got deviated to thinking about ways to get hippo out of a swamp, a reference from Russian couplet he remembers. When he gave up on his engineering skills to save the animal, he played the knight sacrifice step with pure intuition. He is immortalized in the world of chess for his great initiatives, often challenging his opponents against his threats and intuitive sacrifices.