This experimental event was created by combining the ancient game of chess with the powers of the Internet. Like any experiment, especially one conducted on the Internet with millions of people involved, some technical issues or unpredictability was inevitable. There have been many questions asked of us about how the event was conducted and particularly, about some of the final moves of the game. We have provided answers to the most frequently asked questions below.

Why wasn’t Irina’s move posted on move 58?
On that day, all analysts except Irina sent The Gaming Zone their recommendations by the 6 a.m. PST deadline. We posted recommendations and began World Team voting as normal at 12 noon Pacific. Irina sent an e-mail of her recommendation at approximately 12:20 PT but it was not received by Gaming Zone e-mail until after 4:00 PST, over 10 hours late. After 4:00 p.m. we generally do not have resources to update the site unless an emergency occurs.

Are you blaming Irina for this situation?
Not at all. This was an unfortunate situation where a unique combination of circumstances, including Internet latency, created an inability to post one analyst’s recommendation. As many World Team players may have noticed, there were numerous instances of other analysts failing to have their moves posted due to late receipt of their recommendation.

Why was a Move 58 revote, with all recommendations posted, not taken?
The Gaming Zone has remained completely objective throughout this event. Although we rooted for the WT to succeed, our goal was to create fair competition for both sides. To order a revote when there were no data abnormalities or because the winning vote may have been a losing vote would be completely contradictory to this objectivity.

In order to maintain the flow of this complex event, Microsoft had to establish clear time deadlines and rules for everyone involved. Irina Krush is one part of this very intricate event. To order a revote because one of the analysts was late with his/her recommendation would be completely contradictory to these guidelines.

Why did Irina not receive Garry Kasparov’s Move 58 information on time?
We sent out e-mails to the coaches at 3:00 pm Wed., Oct 13, two hours ahead of the regular schedule. We have confirmed that the other three coaches received their moves on time. (All coaches have the phone numbers of Gaming Zone staff in case irregularities occur.)

Move 59
On Move 59, the Gaming Zone found indication of quite significant ballot stuffing (improper ratio of votes to unique PCs) for the sacrificial move QE1. Due to rampant “ballot stuffing” which is the equivalent of “cheating” by World Team members, we disqualified this move from voting and recomputed the votes accordingly.

Move 60
In response to the voices of many World Team members who expressed a desire to resign after Move 59, we immediately offered “Resign” as a voting option on the next move. On move 60 there was no significant “ballot -stuffing” and the resign option received 28% of the vote.

Ballot Stuffing
In designing the game, The Gaming Zone created a voting system that would allow the most players worldwide to vote with the greatest ease, within the confines of a 24 hour voting cycle. We decided that for the game to succeed we would need to rely on the honor of the World Team members to play the game within the rules. That worked quite well, with the sole exception of Move 59.

If we had created a more secure voting system, in an effort to reliably prevent possible vote fraud, participation in the game would have been much more limited. A more secure voting system would have required several email messages to be sent between The Gaming Zone and World Team members to validate particular votes. Many voters would not have been available at their computers throughout the 24 hour voting cycle to respond to multiple email messages from MS. We decided to create an “open” game with a more accessible voting system, which although not fool-proof, was successful for all but one of the 62 moves of “Kasparov v The World.”

How do you know whether there is “ballot stuffing” going on?
Throughout the game, we examined voting patterns and IP addresses whenever there was a close vote to be sure that no irregularities had occurred. As we have stated before, until Move 59, there was never any significant ballot stuffing, and no winning move had ever achieved first place as a result of vote fraud. Throughout the game there was evidence of a neglible level of “vote-stuffing,” albeit on a very minor scale.

Conclusion
We believe this game was helpful in positioning chess well for the 21st century. We are thrilled to have been the hosts for this event and we at The Gaming Zone worked diligently to create the best environment possible for this experiment.