Alan Turing Plays Garry Kasparov At Chess 58 Years After His Death (VIDEO)

Alan Turing Plays Kasparov At Chess From 'Beyond The Grave'
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The 100th anniversary of the birth of Alan Turing has been marked all over the world - but at the University of Manchester over the weekend the celebrations took a more combative tone.

Chess legend and grand master Garry Kasparov was invited to play Alan Turing at chess - 58 years after his death.

Or, at least, a chess program Turing wrote by hand more than six decades ago.

TurboChamp was created by Turing without a computer and despite an attempt to compile it for Manchester university's Ferranti Mark 1, he never saw the program working.

And due to the relatively simple computers available at the time, TurboChamp isn't exactly a world beater.

In this case Kasparov was able to defeat the program in just 16 moves.

But the chess legend - who was famously brought down by another computer 45 years after Turing wrote TurboChamp - still paid credit to his achievements, and the world's loss.

"I suppose you might call it primitive, but I would compare it to an early car - you might laugh at them but it is still an incredible achievement," Kasparov said.

"He wrote algorithms without having a computer - many young scientists would never believe that was possible. It was an outstanding accomplishment.

"Although it's only thinking two moves ahead, I would have thought it would give the amateur player some serious problems.

"Alan Turing is one of the very few people about who you could say that if he had lived longer the world would be a different place."