Irregardless, this was to demonstrate by analogy that things that seem simple can actually be really hard to fully understand.
Here's a quote of a translation of a quote, from the loser, about 8 years before he lost:
"""In 1989 Garry Kasparov offered some comments on chess computers in an interview with Thierry Paunin on pages 4-5 of issue 55 of Jeux & Stratégie (our translation from the French):
‘Question: ... Two top grandmasters have gone down to chess computers: Portisch against “Leonardo” and Larsen against “Deep Thought”. It is well known that you have strong views on this subject. Will a computer be world champion, one day ...?
Kasparov: Ridiculous! A machine will always remain a machine, that is to say a tool to help the player work and prepare. Never shall I be beaten by a machine! Never will a program be invented which surpasses human intelligence. And when I say intelligence, I also mean intuition and imagination. Can you see a machine writing a novel or poetry? Better still, can you imagine a machine conducting this interview instead of you? With me replying to its questions?’"""
- https://www.chesshistory.com/winter/extra/computers.html
So while it's easy for me to say today "chess != AGI", before there was an AI that could win at chess, the world's best chess player conflated being good at chess with several (all?) other things smart humans can do.