[modin]

We did notice immediately, but we had the first board to play following a grand speaker introduction, and we just went with it instead of resetting the board with all eyes on us and making the hosts look bad. Speaking for myself at least, I can't believe he didn't notice immediately too.

It made my noting down of the moves quite hard.

> I would have thought it as jarring as a mistuned musical instrument.

This was exactly my thought, how much it mattered to him at his level.

[ckcheng]

> I can't believe he didn't notice immediately too.

Is it possible that maybe Kasparov noticed and just like you, he went with it instead of making the hosts look bad?

[YZF]

This would be my guess. It's hard to imagine Kasparov didn't notice. There are variants of chess where the pieces are organized differently and obviously as the game progresses beyond the opening you can get into all sorts of positions. I'm sure Kasparov can calculate from any given arrangement of the pieces. The difference would be that moves that he would play automatically because of preparation now have to be thought through deeper.

I'm impressed parent survived that many moves. Must be a good chess player even with the simultaneous game setting.

[modin]

That's what I think, and also what I think I wrote. Sorry if it's unclear, I'm not a native English speaker.

[adonovan]

No worries.

Such good manners. :) I would have politely asked to swap the royal pieces around.