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64 squares: RIP Bobby Fischer.

Bobby Fischer has died at the age of 64 [1]. One year lived for each square on a chessboard. (Was he thinking about that?)

I wonder how he felt about machines taking over the game. Chess is now a “solved” problem in the sense that no human can win reliably against the machines anymore. Of course, it’s not “solved” in the sense of there being a machine that can always at least draw given the advantageous color (assumed to be white, but that doesn’t matter for these purposes). Probably Go [2] will become machine-dominated within a few decades too, though so far it’s proven a tough nut to crack [3], which is somehow pleasing.

RIP, Bobby Fischer.