I'm not going to beat him unless I soften him up first a bit. Look, just take the end of game five."The one where you escaped with a miraculous looking draw from what had looked like a lost ending?"Yeah, that's the one But there you go again with that `looked like' That's what really gets me about you humans. Why don't you just work out what things really are instead of cosily talking about what they `look like'? It `looked like' a draw to me, 'cos I'd worked it out, see."You certainly found a very beautiful way to save the position."Beauty, I always say, is in the central processing unit of the beholder But there was nothing to save Everything was perfectly safe all along Look at the diagram. I'd just been helping myself to his queenside pawns, and you all thought that his g-pawn couldn't be stopped. he's just played 46.Re6 and I'm told that some of the guys in the commentary thought it was curtains for the computer.

What a laugh! Don't these guys know the perpetual check rule? After 47...c4 48.Re3 Kb6 49.g6 Kxb5 50.g7 Kb4 51.g8=Q I just keep checking on d1 and d2 with the rook You know, he never even offered me a draw. After 50...Kb4, he just started talking to my programmer and explaining to him why he couldn't win the position. That's when I knew I'd got him."And then in the sixth game, he made some sort of blunder in the opening, playing two moves out of sequence, falling into an old opening trap."Do you really believe that?"What do you mean?"Look, this is the world champion, ain't it? Do world champions fall into opening traps? You know, I'd really like to see a print-out of his mental processes to see just what he was thinking about at the time He played like a computer, you know. Maybe there was some sort of intervention.You must be joking."Ha! Who said computers don't have a sense of humour? But there was something a little odd about that last game You know when he played 7...h6, I was genuinely puzzled. I thought maybe someone had told him that computers don't sacrifice pieces But he must have known that I had it all in my opening book It was a bit of a dilemma for me, I can tell you. Do I sac a piece with Nxe6 and get a huge bishop check on g6, or do I just get on with the game more quietly? Aw, I thought.

Let's go for it."Mr Kasparov has said that he would tear you into pieces in a real competitive match. How do you reply to that suggestion?"Well, tough titty Garry You just might not get the chance This chess stuff is really dullsville. I'm thinking of moving into something more challenging, like stamp collecting, maybe.". George Martin, 71, musician and record producer I love snooker; it requires tremendous concentration. When I'm in London, I sometimes play at a club with my son, but mostly I play with a chap in the village who runs the post office. He and I are pretty much the same standard, and we play for a pound stake for three games. The loser puts a pound in the kitty and, after a few months, we've got about pounds 75. Then we have a countdown to the championship, and he'll say: "It may not be much to you, but it's life and death to me!" Good fun.