Kasparov foes feel rooked

Four months ago, Microsoft's MSN Web portal set up a scheme for chess players around the world to take on world champ Garry Kasparov via the Internet. But last week ballot-stuffing accusations flew, an e-mail glitch altered a critical World move and, finally, one of the World team "coaches" quit.

"You live by the Internet, you die by the Internet," said Microsoft (Nasdaq:MSFT) spokeswoman Diane McDade. "This was only possible because of the technology, but unfortunately in this case the technology caused a problem." (Microsoft is a partner in MSNBC.)

The problems started quite innocently, McDade said, when an e-mail glitch kept one of the chess match coaches from posting her analysis before move 58 of the match. The way the game was structured, four expert players, all under 20, posted move-by-move suggestions to the World, which then voted via the Net on what strategy to follow. About 6,000 to 10,000 voters showed up each day, according to Microsoft.

United States-born coach Irina Krush had become the favorite of the World team, as voters followed her suggestion for virtually every move.

But on move 58, decided last Wednesday, Microsoft says it didn't receive her suggested move until several hours after the daily deadline, leaving the World team to follow another coach's suggestion.

Several players felt this ruined the World strategy.

"It's really unfortunate. It ended up being a move many people on the World team thought was a critical move," said McDade.

Losing move?
According to a statement on Krush's Web site, "In a close vote, a move other than Ms. Krush's recommendation was chosen by the voters. Unfortunately, the move chosen had been established by many analysts worldwide (including Krush) to be a game-ending losing move."

Krush, who referred questions to her agent, decided to retire from the match at that point.

After Kasparov's Thursday move, the frustrated World Team rebelled, voting on Friday to commit the chess equivalent of suicide -- a move that would have surrendered the black queen.

On Saturday, Microsoft voided the vote to surrender the queen, saying voters had stuffed the ballot box by tricking their tallying system. That frustrated some players even more.

"This game is now hopelessly sullied, and Mr. Kasparov is therefore sullied if he continues in this farce," a frustrated player told MSNBC. "The World Team was denied the right even to resign in protest."

But Microsoft said it was just doing its best to ensure the game concluded in fair fashion.

Stuffing the ballot box
Some degree of that kind of cheating had gone on througout the game's 60 moves, according to program manager Eddie Ranchigoda, but not enough to affect the outcome. When designing the game, he said Microsoft decided against a more secure voting mechanism because it would have required several cumbersome steps, such as e-mail notification, which likely would have decreased the number of people able to participate. And in the end, he said, MSN was able to rely on players not to cheat.

"This was the first time a move not recommended got a high percentage," he said. "That was a red flag."

The company made players vote again, but this time offered "resign" as an option. By Monday, the World Team had voted to carry on, with resigning taking only 28 percent.

Still, the game appears to be nearing its end, and like many real-world games, the probable losers are frustrated while the winner fears his victory might be tainted.

"Garry will comment in a few days," Ranchigoda said. "He says he will release a statement that will show he would have won the game, that there were no technical glitches that have affected the outcome. ... Garry's very anxious to talk."

Kasparov likely to win
Krush, on her Web page announcement, also concedes Kasparov was the likely winner anyway. "World Champion Kasparov could (and probably would) have prevailed from his superior position, as the World had already made a serious inaccuracy at move 52," the note reads.

Microsoft has posted explanations for the ballot-stuffing and the e-mail glitch on a bulletin board connected with the game and explained the matter in an online chat, but there's currently no explanation on the Kasparov match Web page.

"It was an experiment," McDade said. "We have learned a lot. If we were to do it all over again, we would try to put up-front some of these issues that were Internet-only chess issues."