Kasparov's Gambit...

     ...an early chess playing program. Kasparov's Gambit was a chess playing computer program created by Heuristic Software (owned by IM Julio Kaplan, who was also a computer programmer) and published by Electronic Arts in 1993. 

     With the help of other players and programmers. Kaplan's original program evolved into Socrates which won the North American Computer Chess Championship. Among the developers were Larry Kaufman and Don Dailey, who, later were also developers of Kasparov's Gambit which was based on Socrates II.

     Electronic Arts purchased Socrates II and hired its creators to build a new product, Kasparov's Gambit, with Kasparov himself as consultant. 

     The program was an MS-DOS program and Kasparov's involvement and support was a big selling point, but even then it didn't sell very well. When it went on sale in 1993 it was buggy and had to be patched. The patched version ran at about three-quarters of the speed of the old Socrates II. 

     In 1993, Kasparov's Gambit competed in the Harvard Cup (six humans versus six programs) where it faced GMs rated 2515 to 2625; the program finished in last place. The best computer program (a Socrates derivation - Socrates Exp) finished sixth. According to team developer Eric Schiller, a Windows version of the Gambit was planned by Electronic Arts, but it was never finished. 

     In 1993, Computer Gaming World liked the program stating its stunning SVGA graphics, Socrates II engine and coaching features placed it "above any PC game on the market". The editors called the program "beautifully crafted", a "great teacher" and "a chess game for the 'rest of us." 

     The program was intended to be a teaching tool for a wide range of player levels. It had digitized images, videos and the digitized voice Kasparov. It also featured 125 tutorials (written by Eric Schiller), classified by openings, middlegame, endgames, tactics and strategy as well as a Famous Games database with world champions' games commented on by Kasparov with a quiz option where the user must choose the next move. 

     There was an auxiliary graphical chessboard showing the computer's analysis while playing or reviewing moves, an interactive move list and an analysis text box. It showed the move's elapsed time, depth, score of the best evaluated line and number of positions examined. In addition, the program had multiple playing styles allowing creation and customization of computer opponents.

     It also had a coaching window, including the moves played and comments about openings and advice, sometimes showing videos of Kasparov The personalities that could be created consisted of five adjustable characteristics in percentage (0-100%): strength, orthodoxy, creativity, focus and aggressiveness/ They had an Elo rating, but it had no relationship to the real world. Instead, it was intended to provide a useful way to measure the player's strength and progress against the program. 

     Kaspatov's Gambit was designed for 386SX IBM AT compatible systems and the use of a mouse was recommended. Using the SVGA mode it had a 640x480 resolution with 256 colors. 

     The first released bugs included: the knowledge of Bishop mobility was missing as was some other knowledge. It was slow and there were bugs in the features and time controls. Also, at least for that time period and the fact that it had so many features that were unfamiliar to early computer users, it was rather difficult to use. 

     The list price for Kasparov's Gambit was $59.95 ($123 in today's dollars).  By comparison, Fritz 2 (floppy disc) sold for $125 ($257 today) and Fidelity Electronic's USCF 2325 rated Mach IV Master in a custom attache case listed at $799 ($1,640 today). The Windows version of Chessmaster 3000 (floppy disc) sold for $59.95, the MS-DOS version was $10 cheaper.  

     Kasparov's Gambit (DOS version) can be download from My Abandoned Ware HERE and you can play against it on Retro Games HERE. Note: once the program starts running you'll have to press ESC to get out of it. 

     By the way, the very first chess computer I ever owned was Boris, circa 1980. It was pretty weak, but it was a quite a novelty. I saw it in a bookstore with a $300 price tag on it and had to have it. I remember the sales lady being kind of shocked when I told her I wanted to buy it...$300 was a LOT of money in 1980, about $1,050 today. You can see a nice YouTube video of Boris in action HERE. 

     Boris is long gone, but I still have the very nice 6-7/8" x 10" x 3-1/4" wooden box that the guts were housed in; it makes an excellent box for storing watches, tie clips, loose change, etc.