Kasparov Lights The Fuse for Wireplay

Garry Kasparov launched BT Internet's Wireplay Play Games Now! chess service at the Royal Society of Arts in London last December with a simultaneous display against some of England's strongest juniors. Journalists and Wireplay representatives also played, but only the juniors (David Howell, Murugan Thiruchelvam, Gawain Jones and Thomas Rendle) put up real resistance before eventually succumbing.

Each person had 15 minutes on their clock and Kasparov played them in groups of three at a time, which gave him an average of five minutes per game. He won all 12 games. Murugan and David battled extremely hard; Gawain had the opportunity to win the exchange at one point, but he missed it. "If we had been sitting across the board from each other you would have realised by the expression on my face," Kasparov told him. Instead the players sat at computer terminals, just as they would if they were playing at home. David, who is eight years old, found the mouse tricky to operate.

Thomas, who had also played Kasparov on his visit to London in 1996, was savaged by an onslaught of pieces. When his position became hopeless, he cheekily offered a draw. Kasparov declined and was about to deliver mate with a knight move to the h-file, when commentator Malcolm Pein reminded him that "a knight on the rim is dim". Thomas's demise was postponed for a couple of moves while good-humoured Kasparov found an alternative way to mate.

The Observer's Gaby Wood was one of the journalists who volunteered to place herself on the sacrificial pyre. She lost her queen after a few moves, but Kasparov toyed with her for a while before striking the fatal blow. He could afford to be complacent - the night before, he had won 24-0 in a charity simul where teams of five paid £5,000 per board. All the money went to the Kisharon School for children with special needs.

BT's Play Games Now! is an Internet service which can be accessed from anywhere in the world. Individuals can play chess with each other, or groups of friends can form 'clubs' and organise tournaments between themselves - a facility which is not available on the Internet Chess Club. BT is also setting up the first ever UK-wide online chess championship for schools, which is due to start at the end of February.

There are two major problems with chess on Play Games Now! which will have to be overcome if it is to succeed. The first is the lack of potential opponents. Often when you connect to the service, there is no-one else online to challenge. "We need better publicity," admitted Keith Silver, Wireplay's grandly-titled head of intellectual games. "We are putting links on the relevant chess sites and we will try to attract people at certain times, such as early evenings and weekends. It will build up, we'll create a bulletin board as we have done for poker and bridge. We have around 40-50 people playing those games on a typical night."

The other problem is the complexity of the system. It is not all clear how to propose a new game or how to adjust the time controls, but instance. The Internet Chess Club, which usually has several hundred people online, provides a detailed set of instructions for first-time users and a support team who answer queries by phone or e-mail. BT would do well to follow that example.

More information about Wireplay can be found on the Internet at www.wireplay.co.uk

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