Kasparov vs IBM Deep Blue
In May 1997, IBM's Deep Blue Supercomputer played a fascinating match with the reigning World Chess Champion, Garry Kasparov. For the first time a computer program beaten a world champion chess player.
Game 1: May, 3 1997 - Kasparov wins.
Garry Kasparov showed us what 'Anti Computer Chess' was today and played cat and mouse with Deep Blue, accumulating small advantages without risking anything. Deep Blue seemed a little bemused at first and played a few innacurate and weakening moves but it came right back into the game with a retreat that no one had foreseen.
Kasparov kept his nerve, and the advantage, but consumed valuable thinking time and could be seen chiding himself at one point when he appeared to have missed the best move.
With the tension rising, Deep Blue was provoked into an unsound attack that weakened its position still further -- but such was the ferocity of its assault that it took all of Kasparov's tactical skill to rebuff the computer.
Although nominally ahead on material, Deep Blue was strategically lost after the queens were exchanged and the world champion methodically wrapped up the endgame.
Deep Blue has white tomorrow, and Kasparov will find it much harder to control the play.
White: Kasparov
Black: Deep Blue
Game 2: May 4, 1997 - Deep Blue wins.
So this proves it, last year's win for Deep Blue was no fluke. The computer stunned the audience and particularly the watching Grandmasters by playing a seamless strategic game in a type of blocked position that conventional wisdom has always held, favors the human player.
Maybe its time to rewrite the textbooks, the match is alive again at 1-1. Kasparov was stunned by his defeat and left the playing area at great speed without comment. The Deep Blue team received a standing ovation and their chess expert Joel Benjamin summed it up: " This was real chess."
Kasparov has the advantage of the white pieces in Tuesday's third game, and will welcome the rest day to collect his thoughts. Deep Blue has to find an improvement over its play in game 1 but whatever the outcome, its clearly worthy of its nickname Deeper Blue.
White: Deep Blue
Black: Kasparov
Game 3: May 6, 1997 - Draw.
The champion finds it difficult to pinpoint the real Deep Blue. The first draw of the match leaves it tied at the halfway stage. Garry Kasparov was visibly frustrated by his lack of success, an emotion that surfaced at the press conference in what diplomats might call a "frank exchange of views" with Deep Blue chess consultant Joel Benjamin.
After Deep Blue's sublime performance in Game 2 it was back to normal computer-vs.-human chess. Deep Blue played rather as it did in Game 1 and mixed some bad positional moves that betrayed a lack of appreciation of strategy with some superb tactical ideas.
It must be so hard to face an opponent that you cannot see who plays so unevenly and, of course, in certain positions, perfectly.
The world champion produced a real surprise as early as move one and we were treated to an opening move obviously prepared for the computer, something that Kasparov would never play against a human.
The idea was to avoid tactics at which Deep Blue excels and make strategic factors paramount. It seemed to work as Deep Blue got its pieces in a muddle. But to compensate for that, the machine did what all machines like to do during a game of chess: It grabbed a pawn and refused to give it back.
Kasparov does not hide his feelings during the game, and we were treated to the full range of facial expressions: a smile when Deep Blue weakened its position and then a huge grimace when the consequences of one of Deep Blue's neat ideas dawned.
Kasparov's position became better and better. Deep Blue "did everything to lose the game but not enough," Kasparov said after the match. With imminent defeat predicted in the press room and on the Internet, Deep Blue played a marvelous, if inconspicuous looking, bishop move that visibly shocked Kasparov and convinced him to part with his most powerful piece, a knight lodged on a great central square.
With the position blocked, Deep Blue was content to mark time with its king as Kasparov strained to find a winning plan. But after just six more moves he gave up and offered a draw.
-- IM Malcolm Pein, London Chess Centre
White: Kasparov
Black: Deep Blue
Game 4: May 7, 1997 - Draw.
Garry Kasparov still cannot come to grips entirely with Deep Blue. The fourth game saw the world champion overcome early difficulties to reach a winning endgame, only to let it slip at the critical moment.
The second draw of the match leaves it tied at 2-2 with two to play. Deep Blue's speed of response gives it an extra edge because it leaves Kasparov less time to reflect. Both sides have to make their first 40 moves in two hours thinking time. When Kasparov goes in for a long think at an early stage, as he did today, he finds he has to make his last few moves in a hurry as he strives to reach the first "time control" on the 40th move.
Consequently, errors creep into his play. The champion feels he missed a win in the time trouble phase. Deep Blue, naturally, just keeps churning out the moves and keeping the pressure on. Kasparov is tiring.
When questioned by commentator Maurice Ashley about a winning possibility near the end of the game, Kasparov replied: "I was tired and I could not figure it out."
Murray Campbell said of the machine: "It knew it was a little behind but it never saw a clear win (for Kasparov)."
Kasparov has obviously developed a healthy respect for Deep Blue, admitting that he "did not have any great aspirations with black," which implies he would have been satisfied with a draw when he sat down at 3 p.m. By 4p.m., when he stood badly, a draw seemed a long way off, but a pawn sacrifice from Kasparov changed the character of the position and Deep Blue did not react well.
At one point, Deep Blue had five "isolated pawns," a chess term for pawns that are not adjacent other pawns which can be used for protection. Kasparov looked really confident, and Deep Blue might have been worried because one of its handlers, Feng-hsiung Hsu started typing commands into it. This visibly amused the champion. Later it was explained that Feng was restarting the computer.
Kasparov was a pawn in arrears, but his two remaining pawns were united, and could support each other's advance. However, just as the Grandmasters were preparing to bury Deep Blue, it came up with a fantastic defense, and Kasparov's pawns were going nowhere. One of Deep Blue's pawns hovered over the queening square, and when another started to roll, Kasparov had seen enough and offered a draw.
--IM Malcolm Pein, London Chess Centre
White: Deep Blue
Black: Kasparov
Game 5: May 10, 1997 - Draw.
Another marvelous saving resource in the endgame from Deep Blue has tied the match at 2.5-2.5, with one to play, and increased the tension to an almost unbearable degree.
Garry Kasparov, who sees himself as the "last man standing" in a mission to save chess from being turned into a mathematical formula, now faces having to win with black in Game 6 to take the match, an awesome task.
The champion's demeanor has changed palpably as the match has progressed, and he still seems to be in shock from the trauma of being outplayed in Game 2 and then resigning a drawn position.
Today, playing white, he continued his ultra-cautious strategy in the opening, and it seemed to bear fruit in the form of two powerful looking bishops. Deep Blue was unconcerned and played such a startling 11th move that the champion stared at Murray Campbell as if to say, "Is that right ? "
Said Kasparov after the game: "Sometimes the computer plays very human moves. "
Kasparov was soon under pressure on the board, and again on the clock, but he was given some relief when Deep Blue exchanged queens, a tactic that simplifies the game considerably.
The next phase of the game saw Kasparov make a comeback and outplay the machine, isolating its pieces and giving up a pawn to win it back advantageously soon after.
Finally came another vintage endgame in which the combined human intuition of all the top players present could not outweigh the raw calculating power of Deep Blue.
Kasparov had a pawn that seemed destined to be promoted to a new queen, the nearest thing in chess to a touchdown. Deep Blue, meanwhile, seemed oblivious to the danger and was feasting on Kasparov's queenside pawns. What was it doing? We all wanted to know. The answer came as Deep Blue's king moved up the board creating such huge threats that, in the end, Kasparov had to offer a draw on the 49th move.
So no winner for the third successive game, only for the game of chess. The champ summed it up: "When two sides play well the game is a draw. "
-- IM Malcolm Pein, London Chess Centre
White: Kasparov
Black: Deep Blue
Game 6: May 11, 1997 - Deep Blue wins.
By his own admission, the pressure got to Garry Kasparov today. It was the not the $300,000 difference between first and second prize nor the massive media attention this match has received. It was Deep Blue's astonishing play the world champion could not come to terms with.
Kasparov was off-balance coming into this game, a man who, for once in his career, had let his emotions overcome the logical impulses of his own chess genius. Still smarting from his reverse in the second game, Kasparov had lost his objectivity and accepted his strategy has failed.
In a bizarre twist, Kasparov avoided his favorite opening moves and started to play like his longtime human rival, Anatoly Karpov, who loves to defend with an opening known as the Caro-Kann. This was a clear sign things were not right, but Deep Blue, naturally, did not notice and just played the standard moves. As early as move seven, Kasparov made a clear mistake allowing a sacrifice of a knight that is known to be very strong. A quick check of the computer chess databases showed that of the nine players who had allowed this sacrifice, only one had survived and he needed a large slice of luck.
With Deep Blue, luck does not come into it, and we witnessed the shortest ever game between man and machine at the top level. After just under an hour, Kasparov realized how hopeless his position had become. We did not have to wait long for the killer blow from Deep Blue that ended the game after just 19 moves and win the match 3.5-2.5. The champion issued a challenge at the post game press conference: " It's time for Deep Blue to play real chess. I personally guarantee I will tear it in pieces." Fighting talk, and I fervently hope we will see Deep Blue participate in wider world of chess.
What has changed in the machine that lost last year ? The director of the IBM research team, C.J.Tan, explained: " Three things were improved this time around; it's more powerful, we added more chess knowledge and we developed a program to change the parameters in between each game."
Kasparov is still in shock, and was in his hotel room last night studying printouts from the Deep Blue team that he hopes will give him some insights into its wonderful play that have entertained and will, in time, educate every chess player.
-- IM Malcolm Pein, London Chess Centre
White: Deep Blue
Black: Kasparov
source: www.research.ibm.com/deepblue/