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''They said forget it, and asked me did I know anyone else who might be willing to pose for a picture. And I said, I’m sure that [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Lasker Ed Lasker] was a very respected name in chess and a charming man and a gentleman, and would not ask for $2500. He said he would be delighted, and they paid us each $1. The funny thing about it is they proceeded to go to some antique dealer on [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madison_Avenue Madison Avenue] and rented a chess set — an Indian chess set of the sixteenth century which cost all of $2500 and a chess board which cost $1200, and everybody was absolutely dying in case any of the pieces should fall over. They were extremely delicate filigree ivory, and they were insured''.
But the pictures didn’t turn out and had to be retaken, meaning that the chess set and board had to be re-rented, the cost well exceeding, Bernstein calculates, what it would have cost to rent Bobby Fischer instead. As it turned out, Life never did use the pictures in its magazine, although six or seven years later Bernstein was surprised to discover a picture of himself and Ed Lasker standing in front of their 704 in the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_Life Time-Life] series on mathematics. But [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_J._Watson T. J. Watson], the president of [[IBM]], was not amused. IBM’s original, or at least official, justification for allowing Bernstein to use the first 704 for nothing more serious than game playing had been the hope that if he were successful, it would show the world—in world — in particular, business people — that computers could be used to solve problems even as difficult as ones that came up in business. But IBM’s stockholders had challenged Watson at the last meeting, wanting an explanation for the money being wasted on playing games.
=Chess Programs=
